Triple Turnabout
by Sith Droideka
Summary: You don't know the truth yet. But sooner or later you'll have to choose.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE REST OF THE JANAVERSE SERIES, GO TO OUR PROFILE AND DO THAT BEFORE READING THIS ONE. If you don't, not only will you be confused, but you'll also be spoiled! You've been warned!**

 **This being the first fic written after I played SoJ, I have to point out that SoJ is not remotely related to the Janaverse continuity (yet). Any characters, concepts, or backstory from SoJ (Apollo, I'm lookin' at you) are not "canon" as far as the Janaverse is concerned. And before you ask, yes - I LOVED SoJ. It's right up there with T &T and GK2 in my book. In fact, parts of this fic were even inspired by it! Although mostly in the sense that I, like the writers of SoJ as far as I can tell, asked myself "How crazy can this POSSIBLY get?" before setting out to write this. Also, WE NEED TO GO DARKER.**

* * *

 _November 15 (2057), 6:45 PM, Ossenfelder Condominiums, Room no. 88_

"Hey, kitten, open up," Miguel Fey-Armando said lightly, shifting his weight to his hip. "I know you're in there. A~nd I know I'm fifteen minutes late, but at least I got here." He knocked on the door again. "Kitten, you _said_ you wanted to watch 2001, right? I wasn't lying when I said I found it on DVD."

Irritated now, he knocked on the door harder, and was surprised when the door swung slightly back.

"It's open…?" he said, blinking. Maybe Alois wasn't home? He pushed open the door, but it was stopped by something about three inches in.

Miguel was a prosecutor. He knew crime scenes, _violent_ crime scenes, even if his specialty was more 'sick bastards on the deep web'. He knew how a crime scene smelled - he knew how a fresh corpse smelled… how blood smelled.

And the smell of blood was coming from the sliver of wall he could see through the crack of the door, which was splashed red.

"This can't be happening," he said faintly, not realizing he'd spoken out loud. And all at once he forgot the fact that he already knew that whoever was on the other side of the door was dead, and thought maybe he could still save them if he just called an ambulance, and he muscled open the door and it was Alois.

Not a random dead guy in Alois' apartment, but Alois von Karma-Gavin himself, lying just in front of his door, blood everywhere, stabbed so many times his torso looked more like ground meat with scraps of fabric sticking to it, and there was even a knife still embedded in his ribcage.

And very dead.

Miguel took a step backward, stumbled over nothing, and fell to the floor. He stared at the body. 2001: A Space Odyssey lay forgotten nearby.

"No… way…"

The sound of sirens.

* * *

 _January 13 (2053), 2:13 AM, Gavin Estate, Jana's room_

6YJL401.

Jana woke up with a start.

She laid in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, for another minute, before sitting up and rubbing her hands over her face. 6YJL401 - she still remembered the number. It had been two and a half years since she'd seen it on a license plate, receding down an alley.

She'd been eleven then. She'd just turned fourteen, now. Today was going to be her debut in court - as a defense attorney, despite the fact that she came from a long line of prosecutors.

6YJL401…

She'd almost lost her brother that day.

* * *

 _April 27 (2054), 4:40 PM, Los Angeles County Morgue_

Klavier Gavin threw back the sheet covering the corpse on the autopsy slab. Alois stared down at it, eyebrows raised, then turned to his father.

"It's uncanny," he said evenly.

The corpse in question was the spitting image of his sister, Jana, at least in the face - Klavier hadn't pulled down the sheet far enough to see the rest of the body, although judging by the way the fabric fell against it, it was definitely the body of a full-grown woman, not the late-blooming fifteen-year-old the actual Jana was. But the face… it was the same face, although several years older, and somehow even in death _harder_ ; she must have been pale when living, since her skin was stark white, and her sightless eyes were the same light, almost-greenish blue that both the von Karma-Gavin siblings had inherited from their father. Even her hair was about right: platinum blonde and roughly the same style, although much longer, and with a streak of blue-gray that only the dead woman knew if it was natural or dyed.

"No one has any idea who she is," Klavier said. "We've ran dental, fingerprints - everything. She's a total Jane Doe. All we know about her is that she's half-white half-asian and approximately 22 years old."

"…and she just happens to look exactly like an older version of Jana," Alois said.

"It's strange, ja?" He shook his head. "Homeless man found her in a dumpster not too far from here. She'd only been dead for about an hour when he called it in. And I hear the reporters are already all over this one - calling it the start of Jack the Ripper updated for the 21st century."

"So she was disemboweled?"

"Ja. Surgical precision and everything. Anyway, Alois, you think you can take this case? I was supposed to, but I have to meet your mother in Borginia and my flight leaves in two hours-"

"-and it's an emergency, ja, Ich kenne. I assume Onkel Miles already gave his approval?"

"He was the one who suggested it, actually. Seems you and I were the only ones not working on a case right now - although I thought you were still on the Brooks case?"

Alois shook his head. "Got extradited to Texas this morning. Frau Anklägerin Marshall is taking that over."

Klavier nodded absently. "Herr Edgeworth, on top of things as always." There was the implicit addition of _despite his age_ , although that didn't mean much coming from a 52-year-old. "So, you can just grab the case file for this one out of my office, although there isn't much in it so far."

"Alright."

"…and you and Jana will be fine with just Kristoph in the house for the next week? Herr Edgeworth commented that he and Herr Wright can take Jana in again like they did last December. And I'm sure Maria or Miguel would be more than willing to let you crash at one of their places."

Alois frowned at the mention of last December. Last December, both of his parents had been overseas on business (Franziska had been in Zheng Fa then, and Klavier in Germany), and Jana had stayed with the Wrights and Alois had stayed with Maria Fey-Armando, since Kristoph had been in San Francisco. But what had wound up happening was that Maria had been assaulted by a crazy man, ending up in a coma for several days, and Alois had been blamed for it, and had gone on trial, being prosecuted by his own best friend, and Maria's brother, Miguel.

"Onkel Kristoph's fine, Papa."

"Well… alright then, Alois." Klavier clapped him on the back. "I've got to be off, then. You can ask Dr. Kamosinko for details about the autopsy. Achtung, kiddo!" He left the room, humming, and passed a large man wearing a thick black cloak and a thick white beard on his way out. "Doctor."

"Prosecutor Gavin," Dr. Kamosinko said jovially, then walked up to Alois and the Jane Doe. "Ahh, it is younger Prosecutor Gavin, Prosecutor Alisa! You have been well, yes?"

"Ja, Herr Doktor Kamosinko, and it's _Alois_ , not Alisa," Alois said with a smile. "I just took over the Jane Doe case."

"Jane Doe case? You mean Jack the Ripper case?" Dr. Kamosinko said with a laugh. "Cause of death very similar to butchered prostitutes in 1888. Very surprising. This is Los Angeles, not Whitechapel. Xa xa xa xa xa!"

Alois' smile stayed on his face. The coroner _was_ always a bit of an experience.

"But I not one who performed examination on Jane Doe," Dr. Kamosinko continued, still chortling a little.

"Examination?" Alois said, "has there been no autopsy yet?"

"Why need autopsy? Jack the Ripper already perform for us!" He slapped Alois on the back hard enough that he almost stumbled into the autopsy slab. "Everything left to assistant, Jackie. Jackie! Come here!"

"Yes, Dr. Kamosinko?" came a voice from the other side of the room, where there was another door. Alois turned around and was struck by the assistant's appearance, although it wasn't terribly remarkable - she was just a pale, rail-thin woman with straight black hair that covered one eye, the other of which had an ashen darkness under it that rivaled even Prosecutor Blackquill's bags. Other than that, she could have been anyone off the street.

"This is Jackie Proserpine," Dr. Kamosinko said, gesturing to her as she came to stand next to him. "She is new student under my care. Jackie, this is Alisa von Karma-Gavin. He is prosecutor."

Alois blinked, shaking himself, and extended a hand for her to shake. "Alois, actually." He was certain that he didn't know her from Eve, but… somehow he was starting to get that sick, heady feeling he usually associated with being around blood, or trapped in a small, dark space.

"Charmed," said Jackie, shaking Alois' hand. "I've heard of you before."

"Only good things, I hope," Alois said, grinning.

"You are unwell, Prosecutor Alisa?" Dr. Kamosinko suddenly said, "you suddenly are very pale."

"Eh?" Alois glanced at him. He had a genuinely concerned expression on his face. "N-Nein, Herr Doktor Kamosinko. I'm perfectly fine. And it's Alois, not Alisa."

"Hmmmm." Dr. Kamosinko leaned closer, scrutinizing Alois' face, before drawing back and shrugging. "Well, I leave you with Jackie. Tell sister I said zdravstvuy, yes?"

"Of course, Herr Doktor Kamosinko."

Neither Alois nor Jackie said anything while Dr. Kamosinko wandered off, whistling. Once the door slammed, he turned back to her.

"So, you did the examination, Frau… Fräulein Proserpine?" Alois said, ignoring the weird, tight feeling in his chest.

Jackie nodded. "The body was less than two hours old when it came in last night. I've already sent blood and tissue samples away for toxicology, although I doubt they'll come back with much. It's clear that the cause of death was exsanguination. Would you like to take a look?"

Alois glanced at the body. He could see - he hadn't really been paying attention to it a minute ago - a very deep gash in the Jane Doe's throat, although it had already been washed and there wasn't any blood remaining. "Ja, that'd be gut."

Jackie nodded again and threw the sheet back the rest of the way. Alois felt a twinge looking at the body, partially because it was really quite strange to be looking at an adult version of your sister in the nude, and partially because of the cavernous slashes covering her torso, and the ugly cuts on her hands and arms. He was glad the body _had_ been cleaned, because surely when it was found in the dumpster it had had enough blood on it to put Alois out of commission for a week.

"With abdominal mutilation like this," he mused, "no wonder this is being called the 'Jack the Ripper' case."

Jackie shrugged. "If this is really supposed to emulate Jack the Ripper's MO, then it should have some facial and genital mutilation, too. Also, all of the internal organs seem to be accounted for, although I can't say that for sure until I perform a full autopsy."

Alois raised his eyebrows. "Are you a Ripperologist, Fräulein Proserpine?"

She gave him a dry smile. "Is it strange to be interested in serial killers? It's how I got into the medical examination field."

"Nothing wrong with that," Alois said lightly, "my own mentor is endlessly fascinated by the psychology of criminals, in fact."

"Mm. Anyway, Jack the Ripper is fascinating and all, but I've always been a fan of H. H. Holmes."

"H. H. Holmes… he was contemporaneous with Jack the Ripper, er war nicht?"

"Yes, although his death count was much higher. Jack's canonical five versus Holmes' confessed 27…"

"I heard he might have killed up to 200," Alois said, turning back to the body, "obwohl that's beside the point, isn't it?"

"It is," Jackie said with a sigh. "Although there isn't much to say with this body. I'm sure Dr. Kamosinko already told you how dental and fingerprints didn't come with any kind of match."

"I've been told, ja."

"Will the prosecutorial offices be putting up posters or something?" she asked.

"Of course we will," Alois said, smiling, although he still felt slightly… jittery. At this point, he was thinking the body hadn't been cleaned as well as it looked, and it perhaps still smelled slightly of blood - this was a problem he usually had whenever he ventured to the coroner's office, naturally. "It's difficult to investigate a murder when you don't know who might have come into contact with the victim."

"Oh, I know," Jackie said, pulling the sheet back over the Jane Doe. She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Dr. Kamosinko and I will perform the autopsy tomorrow. He'll probably send me by your office to drop off the report."

"Alles klar," Alois said. "My office is room 0501. It's on the fifth floor."

"Duly noted."

As Alois was exiting the room, he heard Jackie grumble something behind him. He glanced back, and saw that she was staring down at the corpse with such a furious expression in her visible eye that Alois felt as though a large spike had just been driven through his chest. He quickly stepped out into the hallway, grateful that Jackie seemed to have not noticed him looking at her, and tried to pull air into lungs that weren't cooperating right now.

Dizzy, he dropped into a chair halfway down the hall, and put his aching head between his knees.

* * *

 _April 27, 5:30 PM, Los Angeles County Morgue_

"Alois?"

"Huh?" Alois looked up, face still pale, to see Blanche Noir, the transplanted-Chicago-native detective he always worked with, crouching in front of him.

"You behind the eight-ball, kid?" she said.

Alois stood up, a little unsteady on his feet. "I'm alright," he said lightly, "just a little overwhelmed by the smell here."

Detective Noir gave him a critical look. "I can deal with the croakers for you. Just stay in your scatter, savvy?"

Alois shook his head. "Surely you also think it's lächerlich for a prosecutor to have a phobia of blood. Sooner or later I've got to learn how to handle it."

"Alois…"

He glanced back at the door that lead to the room where the autopsies were performed. "But I wonder why…" He wondered why he would have such an adverse reaction to the coroner's assistant just, what, having a bad day and taking out her frustrations by glowering at an unidentified corpse? And…

He also wondered just why on earth he'd developed a phobia of blood. He didn't used to have one, he was sure of that, even if he couldn't remember exactly how long ago it was now that he was totally fine being around blood-soaked crime scenes, let alone people with papercuts and nosebleeds.

Detective Noir sighed. "Forget about it, Alois. Anyway, by the time you get back to the Prosecutors' Building, it'll be about time to take the air. And I hear your folks are in Borginia and that shyster uncle of yours is watching you and your sister. You want to hop in my boiler?"

"Danke, I'd love a ride home, Frau Detektivin Noir…"

"I assume tomorrow we'll be putting the screws on that bindle punk who found the stiff. Do you think we'll be able to crab who she is?" Detective Noir said as they exited the building.

"Hm?" Alois said.

"Are you listening to me when I'm jawing, Alois?"

"Entschuldige. Ja, we'll need to talk to the man who discovered the body tomorrow. You know where he is, jein?"

Detective Noir grunted. "He's lying dormy at the homeless shelter two blocks away from the clubhouse. I don't think he'll take a Mickey Finn while this case is still going." She jerked her head towards the other side of the parking garage. "My heap's over here. Come on, Alois."

"Hn."

He really wasn't paying attention. He was just wondering if he should tell Jana that a future and/or alternate version of herself had put in an appearance _in mortem_. This was troubling not only because of the obvious (the fact that she'd been murdered), but also because that meant that somewhere out there, there used to be a Jana who had reached adulthood while still participating in all that time-travel nonsense she and Alois had been unceremoniously thrown into in January.

And considering it was blindingly obvious that she didn't belong in this present… clearly it hadn't worked out for her.

* * *

 _July 8 (2050), 1:00 PM, Alley connecting Hiza Street and Lee Boulevard_

There'd been a murder on Lee Boulevard, which quite naturally attracted its fair share of rubberneckers. Or at least it had a couple hours ago. Over the course of the day, the police had cordoned off the crime scene so they could pick it clean, shut down the whole road so that hapless drivers were forced to detour onto "Pothole" Avenue, and threatened to charge any curious onlookers with loitering and obstructing an investigation.

A car, with a license plate that read 6YJL401, idled on Hiza Street. California's answer to H. H. Holmes calmly waited for the opportunity to snatch up one of those shooed-away gawkers right out from under the LAPD's nose.

* * *

 _April 27 (2054), 11:30 PM, Gavin Estate, Jana's room_

"Jana, aufwachen, und sagen Sie nicht ein Wort."

Jana blinked her eyes open, then turned her head. For a minute she thought it was her mother speaking, although somehow it sounded off, but when she saw the shadowy silhouette next to her bed, she again thought it might be her mother.

Except her mother was in Borginia right now, and somehow, something wasn't right.

Jana reached for her lamp. The figure turned it on before she could.

They stared at each other.

The stranger in Jana's room was not, in fact, a stranger, but someone who had Jana's face and voice, except both were slightly older and much, much harder. _This_ Jana looked like she was about 18 or so, with hair that brushed her shoulders and had a blue-gray streak in it, and a figure exactly like the one Franziska had had in her youth. She also dressed very much like Franziska, although she had no sleeves, and her stockings were punkishly ripped. A coiled whip hung off of a belt whose buckle was a tarnished-looking Gavinner's "G".

"What," Jana said, keeping her voice low.

The other Jana's frown deepened. "I am you," she said, pre-empting Jana's question, "from three years in the future - _your_ future, the alpha alpha timeline. I need your help."

"No," Jana said firmly, "I am done with time-travel. It causes nothing but trouble."

"Yes, but there will be more trouble if we fail to act. Come with me. There is something you need to see." She reached out a hand to her younger self, which Jana hesitated before taking - only taking it because of the grim matter-of-factness with which her older self had extended it. As the other Jana pulled her out of bed, she almost felt like this was the literal pull of fate.

The other Jana pulled something out of her pocket that looked like a smartphone, except somewhat thicker. "This is what a time-travel device looks like in my present," she said, catching Jana's glance.

"Where is the door?" Jana asked begrudgingly.

In response, the other Jana placed the device in Jana's hand. The now-familiar time door, blue and orange, fluid and glowing, flashed into existence at the foot of Jana's bed.

"You can only see it if you are holding the device," the other Jana explained.

"Does that head back to 2057…?"

The other Jana nodded curtly. "And do not worry about disappearing for too long. My doors are accurate down to the second. In fact, if we linger here too long, we may just meet yourself returning."

"A… Alright," Jana said, hesitating. She wondered if she was insane for agreeing to go. But… she had to least _see_ what the other Jana had come here over.

As her older self grabbed her hand, sandwiching the time-travel device between their palms, and lead the way through the time door, Jana realized that she probably should have asked for a moment to change out of her pajamas.

* * *

 _April 27, 11:30 PM, Los Angeles Central Hospital, Psychiatric Ward_

Ares wasn't sleeping, just counting the tiles on the ceiling of his room, which were illuminated only by the hall lights outside the window in his door. That was one of the things he hated about the hospital: the fact that the hall lights were never turned off. Dimmed, sure, once the hour got late enough, but never _off_.

He also hated the sounds the ambulances made when they were pulling up to the emergency room. The ER wasn't very far from the psych wing, unfortunately for him. It was probably set up like because there were so damn many people who wandered into the ER and ended up being sent up here for an evaluation.

He wondered if they told those people that housed on the same floor were dangerous criminals such as himself.

The door opened. Ares glanced toward it, feeling as though he should be more surprised than he actually was. After all, that wasn't supposed to happen - not at this time of night.

And even when the door _did_ open, it was supposed to be a nurse or a shrink, not his half-sister.

"Put some pants on," Watson Justice said, her hands shoved deep in her labcoat's pockets. "We've got things to do and I don't have all night."

Ares raised an eyebrow at her. "What the hell are you doing, Wat?"

"Releasing you on parole. Now get up before someone notices me."

* * *

 **A "Ripperologist" is what people interested in Jack the Ripper call themselves. I know this because my dad is a Ripperologist. Also, because of this, I've actually read a bunch of the original case reports on the Whitechapel murders, and saucy Jack's letters. Very dry reading, to be honest, but interesting nonetheless. I really should go back and FINISH reading said reports and such…**

 **Translations:  
** **ja (DE) yes/yeah  
** **Ich kenne. (DE) I know.  
** **Onkel (DE) Uncle  
** **Frau Anklägerin (DE) Prosecutor** _ **literally, Ms./Mrs. Prosecutor. Incidentally, this is referring to Trucy  
**_ **Herr (DE) Mr.  
** **Achtung, (DE)** _ **oh, like Klavier uses it correctly anyway…  
**_ **Alisa (RU)** _ **the Russian equivalent of Alice  
**_ **Herr Doktor (DE) Dr.** _ **literally, Mr. Doctor  
**_ **Xa xa xa xa xa! (RU) Ha ha ha ha ha!  
** **Nein (DE) No  
** **zdravstvuy (RU) hi/hello  
** **Frau… Fräulein (DE) Ms/Mrs… Miss** _ **Alois is unsure about her age and martial status, so while he initially thinks she's old enough to warrant a "Frau", he errs on the side of flattery  
**_ **gut (DE) good  
** **er war nicht? (DE) was he not?  
** **obwohl (DE) although  
** **Alles klar (DE) Okay, got it** _ **literally, all clear  
**_ **lächerlich (DE) ridiculous/laughable  
** **Danke, (DE) Thanks,  
** **Frau Detektivin (DE) Detective** _ **literally, Ms./Mrs. Detective  
**_ **Entschuldige. (DE) Sorry./Excuse me.** _ **informal  
**_ **jein? (DE)** _ **kind of a weird mixture between yes and no  
**_ **in mortem.** **(LA) in death.  
** **Jana, aufwachen, und sagen Sie nicht ein Wort. (DE) Jana, wake up, and don't say a word.**


	2. Chapter 2

_November 17 (2057), 12:00 AM, Ossenfelder Condominiums, Room no. 88_

It was dark. It was a crime scene. That much was obvious. The older Jana handed her younger self a small flashlight, and she looked around the room - her stomach dropped unpleasantly at the picture framed on the wall. It was a large portrait of a family… _her_ family, although they were plainly several years older. Her parents looked very much the same, she herself looked exactly like the future version of herself standing next to her, and Alois' features had sharpened as he left adolescence, and he had cut his hair and pierced his ears and was dressed a little more low-key, but other than that… well, he still looked like Alois, blue-gray hair, tanned skin, mole under his right eye, everything.

Next to that picture was another, smaller one of Alois standing arm-in-arm with Miguel. Judging by the office background and the fact that Alois was holding his prosecutor's badge out towards the camera with an almost uncharacteristically wide smile, it must have been taken just after his debut.

 _This must be future-Alois' home_ , Jana realized, looking again at the rope outline of a body just inside the door. There was blood everywhere.

"Someone was killed in Alois' residence," Jana stated.

"That someone was Alois," the older Jana said gravely. Jana jerked her head towards her, eyes wide.

"…what?"

Future Jana shook her head. "Just yesterday, or rather two days ago by now, Miguel discovered Alois' body. He had been stabbed over thirty times. Miguel has been arrested for the crime, and I am not allowed to participate in the investigation of this case. Mama and papa will not allow it."

"Oh," Jana said, mouth dry. She supposed she understood why her parents would ban her from getting involved in her brother's murder. They probably thought they were sparing her. "W-Why was Miguel arrested?"

"Statistics. He was the discoverer of the body, and additionally he and Alois were dating."

"He - what?"

"Well," future Jana said with a frown, "actually, Alois told me not too long ago that he still considered himself straight. He and Miguel were not _boyfriends_ , although Alois did often go on dates with him - to make him happy, in his own words. However, everyone knows that in the past few weeks their relationship has been-" she paused, " _had_ been very strained. Apparently Miguel was losing interest in Alois."

"So," Jana said, "he discovered the body, potentially had a motive, and I assume no alibi."

"The time of death was estimated as about fifteen to forty-five minutes before Miguel was supposed to arrive at Alois' condo to watch a movie with him. He insists he overslept and was late, but has no way of proving that." She glanced at where the body was found. "There was another reason he was arrested, though." She pulled out her own small flashlight, and shone it on the floor near the edge of the largest bloodstain. "A dying message." Jana crouched down to look at it.

MF-A ご んりしいるくざ

"…what does it mean?" Jana said at length.

"No one has figured out what the Japanese means yet," Jana said, "evidently it is just nonsense. I assume the theory is that he included it just in case his assailant returned, so that they would see it and not know what he had written… hence why he did not just directly write the name of his killer. The 'MF-A' however, obviously refers to Miguel."

Jana nodded absently. MF-A, Miguel Fey-Armando, that fit. "Maria also has the same initials, though."

"She has a solid alibi."

"And… everyone is sure that Alois was the one who wrote the message?"

Future Jana clicked off her flashlight. "He had the opportunity," she said, her voice tightly clipped, "his death was far from immediate. He may have held on for as long as thirty minutes, but with so many wounds, and his pre-existing hemophobia… simply writing a message must have taken all of his physical and mental strength." She turned around, looking at the family portrait on the wall. "I am not in the loop in the investigation. But I do hear things. The message was provably written by his hand."

"But…" Jana said, "I do not believe that Miguel would kill him. I do not believe that _anyone_ could believe that Miguel would kill him." Did things just change that much by the time they reached this future? "Why did you bring me here?"

"Because I need your help. I need your help deciphering Alois' dying message, and I need your help preventing his death."

"…if you think you can prevent his death… do you know who the killer is?"

Future Jana was silent for a long time before she turned back around and faced her younger self. Her jaw was set. "I believe," she said, "that this is the final act of that tragedy seven years ago."

* * *

 _April 27 (2054), 11:35 PM, Los Angeles Central Hospital, Parking lot_

"Alright, what are we doing," Ares said, resigned, as he followed Watson out of the building.

"Finding blackmail," she said.

"…for Miguel?"

"Of course for Miguel," she snapped, "he's the one I promised to spill his dirty little secret, isn't he?"

"He isn't the only one," Ares muttered, rolling his eyes, somewhat grateful Watson had given him back his sunglasses - although why she had them in the first place was unknown.

"Still, he's a clear threat and I haven't been able to dig anything up on him here," Watson said, "so-"

"Oh _come on_ ," Ares said, "Wat, Miguel's probably the most upstanding person you _know_. And he's not embarrassed by anything, either. He doesn't _have_ any dirty little secrets, not even inane ones."

Watson gave him a sharp look. "If that's the case, then why did it take him two weeks to tell me he wasn't afraid of me? And why did he feel the _need_ to tell me he wasn't afraid of me, instead of saying he had nothing to fear?"

"He probably thinks you have something incriminating that you picked up in an alternate timeline."

"I don't think so," Watson scoffed, "maybe that'd be the excuse he'd give, but he's not _stupid_. I know him. If I released something an alternate version of him did, he'd find some way to prove that it wasn't him. I need something from his past in this timeline, and he knows it."

Ares frowned. "You really think he's already done something you can hold over his head?"

They were interrupted by a harsh " _You_ ," from the shadow of a van they were passing.

Watson jumped slightly, then narrowed her eyes at Misty Edgeworth-Wright, Ares's bodyguard from the alpha lambda timeline, who strode out in front of them, fists clenched.

"I knew you were going to do this, Mrs. Justice," she snarled.

"You didn't stop me," Watson said mildly. She no longer bothered to question why she called her 'Mrs.', even if she did refuse to believe the _other_ older Misty's previous offhand comment that Watson, in the future, was married to a woman.

"It's fine, E," Ares said at the same time.

Misty E gave Watson a very nasty look, but fell into step beside Ares. She always deferred to her precious Mr. Ares, except when he asked for details about lambda-Ares' death.

She never said a word about that.

"Why do you need me in particular, Wat?" Ares said, continuing their conversation.

Watson grudgingly handed him the sleek time-travel device she'd stolen from him in February. "I can't figure out how to work this," she grumbled, "it looks like there're security protocols in place, but I'm a physicist, not a hacker."

"…I don't know how to work this either," Ares said, staring down at it. "When I got it on Valentine's day, it had a preset destination."

Before Watson could get angry and snatch it away from him, Misty E grabbed it out of his hand. "I know how to use this, sir," she said brightly. "it's a very similar model to the one I use." She tapped the touchscreen, then furrowed her brow at it. "Looks like Huitzilopotchli set it to only work for your fingerprints, sir."

"That explains it," Watson sighed, "but how does Huitzilopotchli even have Ares' fingerprints in the first place…? Nevermind, Ares, for now I've got to prove to that thorn in my side that it's only through my good graces that he still has a job. Let's start with…"

* * *

 _April 28, 2:30 PM, Prosecutor's Building, Miguel's office_

"Come in," Miguel said to the knock on his door.

"Guten tag, Miguel. How's the Soergei case going?"

Miguel glanced up. "That computer forensics friend of Detective Skye's is still crunching data. It'll probably take another week to take this to court. How's the Jane Doe case going?"

The corner of Alois' mouth twitched. "Über das…"

Miguel leaned back in his chair, taking a swig from his ever-at-hand mug of coffee. "I've seen those please-identify posters all over downtown. I knew you were going to come to me about it at some point…"

Alois shrugged, and he closed the door behind him. "We can both agree that that's an older, possibly alternate version of Jana who came here for some reason and got killed, ja?" he said.

Miguel nodded, somewhat hesitantly. "It looks like that… although if that were the case, something should have turned up when they tried to identify her by fingerprints."

"Nein, actually," Alois said, shaking his head, "it's true that most defense attorneys have their fingerprints on-file just in case they accidentally contaminate a piece of evidence, but Jana always wears gloves. It's never been an issue, so her prints aren't in the system."

Miguel raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

"I asked Frau Detektivin Skye about it. She checked for me. She thought I was just curious," he added, in response to Miguel's skeptical look.

Miguel grunted into his coffee cup. "I can only imagine what would happen if they _did_ manage to positively identify her as someone living."

"It probably would be nicht gut."

"You can say that again. But… what exactly do you need to talk to me about? I know you didn't come in here just to tell me that the Jane Doe is actually a time-traveller, because that was obvious."

"Nun…" Alois said, looking away from Miguel and instead skimming the bookshelf of old case files, "I was wondering if I should tell Jana about this."

"Won't she notice the posters even if you don't?"

Alois rolled his eyes. "Jana's not that observant."

"Is there a reason why you think you _shouldn't_ let her know about this?"

"I…" Alois paused for a fairly long time. "I don't want to stress her. She was acting oddly this morning, du weißt, Miguel. And anyway I don't think I want her to get… involved. Besides, how would you feel if you knew there was a dead version of yourself in the local morgue?"

"If that's what you think, kitten, then why are you asking me?" Miguel looked at him expectantly.

Alois hesitated again before answer. "I'm not sure it's the right thing to do."

"…why am I the moral arbiter here?"

Alois turned back around with a weak smile. "Morality never was my strong suit."

Miguel stared at him for a long time before turning back to the paperwork on his desk and saying, "It probably would be best to keep this secret from her. It'd be a terrible burden to know about your own death, not to mention we don't know what she'd do if she found out."

"Ja."

"But keep me informed, will you, kitten? Especially if the time-travel aspect starts… complicating things." He took a sip of coffee.

"Aber ja."

* * *

 _November 17 (2057), 12:15 AM, Ossenfelder Condominiums, Room no. 88_

"We will belay the investigation here for now," the older Jana said, "and send you back to your own time."

"What?" Jana said, "you have a time travel device. I can go back at any time I wish."

The older Jana shook her head. "Doing everything all at once is not conducive to clear thinking. I will meet you again 48 hours in your future. In the meantime, I will find out what I can about the details of this crime."

"And L. A. Holmes?" Jana said, frowning severely, "you did not tell me why you believe this is related. I thought that was over."

"It is not over. The culprit was never caught."

"But they never acted again."

"Not in your time, no," future Jana said, glancing away. "But the MO… it is too similar. The timing is too convenient. And of course, Miguel would never kill Alois, no matter how frustrated they were with each other. I am certain of this, and I am certain that, even if the kidnapper known now as L. A. Holmes was not the one to murder my- our brother, it _is_ related."

"Then our plan is to…?"

"Prevent the murder by preventing the hostage massacre." Future Jana pulled out the time travel device and began punching in numbers. "And in order to do that, we will have to figure out who 'Los Angeles version of H. H. Holmes' truly is, so that we can stop them before they commit any crime."

"I see," Jana said, as future Jana grabbed her wrist and led her into the time door she couldn't see.

Jana stumbled into her room, alone, and immediately grabbed her phone off her bedside table and checked the time and date. It was April 27th again, a Monday, and 11:35, only a minute after she had left. The lamp was still on.

She rushed to her desk and pulled out a pencil and the notebook she usually used for her court record, and wrote down future Alois' dying message near as she could remember it. MF-A ご んりしいるくざ… that was about right, she was sure.

 _Now_ , she thought, staring down at the page, _what to do with this?_

* * *

 _July 8 (2050), 1:00 PM, Lee Boulevard_

Jana, eleven, and Alois, thirteen, were both studying very hard to become prosecutors just like their parents. Alois, in fact, was getting better and better scores on his practice bar exams all the time, and it was looking like he'd be debuting in court within the next year. So he was studying hard, and Jana, not about to be shown up by him, was determined to debut at an even younger age… even if it was a matter of months, it didn't matter to her, as long as she beat him out.

To this end, they had both accompanied their mother to a crime scene.

"And what can we tell from these transfer patterns?" quizzed Detective Skye - sometimes still called Detective Justice by her colleagues and superiors, including Franziska - who was working on the case as well.

"The killer tried to drag the body into that alley over there," Jana said, gesturing, "possibly to dispose of it."

"But since the body is still in the middle of the street," Alois said, "we can conclude that they were interrupted. Und if that's the case, there's a good chance that someone probably saw the killer dragging the body."

"Very good," Detective Skye said approvingly, "so, you see how much you can learn about a crime from forensic observation-"

"Detective," Franziska said from the other side of the crime scene, "if you think there is an eye-witness out there, then by all means, _go find them_."

"Y-Yes ma'am!" Detective Skye said, before stalking off.

Franziska walked over to her children. "We have seen all there is to see at the crime scene for now. The investigation will continue when Detective Skye finds whether or not there was an eyewitness, or when the coroner calls back with an identification, whereupon we can look into the victim's contacts. Whichever comes first."

"So what now?" Jana said.

"I'm hungry," Alois said.

Franziska checked her watch. "It is past lunchtime," she said, half to herself, then pulled out a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet and handed it to Alois. "There is a fast food restaurant on the other side of that building over there. You two go buy yourself some lunch, then come back here."

"Ja," Alois chirped, running off to the alley to take a shortcut onto Hiza Street.

"What kind of fast food restaurant is it, Mama?" Jana asked, lingering behind.

"Some burger place… I don't remember, but I am sure you will like it," Franziska said, "go catch up with your brother. I do not want either of you wandering around by yourself downtown."

Jana nodded, and walked to the entrance of the alleyway where Alois had just gone through. Except she didn't see Alois in the alley-

Or rather, she did see Alois, but what she saw was Alois being pulled into a car that was parked on Hiza Street, a black-gloved hand over his mouth preventing him from yelling. Jana couldn't find the breath to call out, and instead tried to run towards the car, but tripped over her own feet and fell hard to the ground. The engine roared, and she looked up again only to see her brother's kicking legs disappear into the dark depths of the gray sedan, and then the door slammed and the engined roared and the car was gone.

Jana screamed.

* * *

 _April 28 (2054), 3:30 PM, Prosecutor's Building, Miguel's office_

"Come in," Miguel said again to someone knocking on his door for the second time today. He was surprised to see that it was Jana this time. "Filly? What are you doing here?"

"I got a ride with Uncle Wright," Jana said.

Miguel nodded. Jana's boss visiting Miguel's boss was something to be expected, after all, since the two of them were married, and the former was still living up to his reputation of shaking down any and all prosecutors for information. "But what are you _doing_ here?"

She awkwardly stood in front of his desk. "I… had a visitor last night."

Miguel put down his coffee mug, serious-faced. "It wasn't Wat again, was it?"

"No, it was… myself."

Miguel blinked.

"Last night, I was visited by myself from three years in the future," Jana explained, staring determinedly at Miguel's desk, "who needed my help because the Alois in her time had been murdered."

"I… see," Miguel said, "and you're wondering if you should tell him about this or not."

She looked up at him. "How did you know?"

"…lucky guess."

"My older self said that she was sure it was related to the L. A. Holmes massacre."

Miguel grimaced. "Then of _course_ you can't tell him about it." Even if he did think Alois would handle news of his own death more gracefully than Jana would, there was a _reason_ why everyone kept Alois' involvement in that incident quiet. He didn't remember a thing about it, and for his own sanity, it was supposed to stay that way. "But you had to tell _someone_ , right?"

Jana nodded.

"I understand, filly," Miguel said with a sigh, "well, keep me updated, and please be careful. I'll let you know if Wat or someone comes asking about it, if they find out somehow."

"Thank you, Miguel."

"Anytime."

As she exited his office, Miguel reflected on the fact that he hadn't thought the von Karma-Gavin siblings would get into any time-travel-related messes _without_ the direct involvement of Watson Justice. If Wat _had_ been involved, then there might have been a chance that Miguel could have taken the fight to her and gotten them out of the whole situation, but - she wasn't. There was nothing for Miguel to protect them from, and nothing he could _do_ besides provide emotional support. They were on their own here. Maybe fate was just cruel like that.

Maria said there was no such thing as fate. He wished she were right.

* * *

 _April 28, 4:00 PM, Wright Anything Agency_

"Jourbon, y'all!" came an exuberant voice from the entrance to the office.

"Oh," said Maya Valerie Wright from where she was sitting at the entrance desk, filing papers because her father had never re-hired another secretary, "you must be that detective Jana was complaining about last month."

Detective Anna Grantaire's face went from a bright, spacey smile to a confused, hurt smile. "Jana complained about me? Ça fait ièche, how chanmé of her."

"If you're here to see my Daddy," Maya Valerie said sweetly, "he isn't here right now. He went to go talk to Daddy at the prosecutor's office."

"Daddy…?" Detective Grantaire said, blinking. "Ooh là là, your father is married to the chief prosecutor, j'ai oublié. But non, I'm not here to see him. Chuis ici on a case!"

"And what case would that be?" Maya Valerie said. "Do you need someone to defend someone?"

"Non, non," Detective Grantaire said, doggedly shaking her head, "I need to see some old case files y'all should still have lying around this office, s'il te plaît."

"Hmm," Maya Valerie said as a butterfly floated around her head, "well… follow me into the back. You can ask Mr. Justice about it."

"An old case file?" Apollo Justice said when Maya Valerie brought Detective Grantaire into the back office and explained her request, "what do you need an old case file for?"

"Well, you see, m'sieur, QLF has decided recently to re-open the une enquête privée of a case from four years ago. The defense at the time was handled by your firm, M'sieur l'avocat bruyant."

Apollo crossed his arms, frowning, for a second before shrugging and saying, "well, if it's from four years ago, I don't see why you can't look at the old court record for it. I'll grab it for you. Who headed up the defense?"

"A m'sieur Diego Armando," Detective Grantaire said, "the Ked Napp case."

Apollo raised his eyebrows from where he was pulling the relevant file off the bookshelf next to Charlie. "Wait… Ked Napp…?"

"Mais oui, keum," Detective Grantaire said with a grin, "one of the biggest mass murders dans l'histoire de la Californie. The L. A. Holmes hostage crisis."

* * *

 **If future Alois and Miguel's relationship sounds weird, that's because it is, and it's also because it's exactly the kind of relationship I am (was?) in lately. (I think he might have "broken up with" me because I'm "out of his league" and "don't deserve" him. Okay?)**

" **Ked Napp" is a pun on "kidnap", obviously. Gotta love a game that lets me get away with such painful wordplay as this…**

 **Translations:  
** **Guten tag, (DE) Good day,/Hello,  
** **Über das… (DE) About that…  
** **nicht gut. (DE) not good.  
** **Nun… (DE) Well…  
** **du weißt (DE) you know** _ **informal  
**_ **Aber ja. (DE) Of course.  
** **Und (DE) And  
** **Jourbon (FR) Hello** _ **verlan (similar to AAVE in english) slang  
**_ **Ça fait ièche (FR) That's annoying** _ **"ièche" is verlan slang  
**_ **chanmé (FR) mean/nasty** _ **verlan slang  
**_ **Ooh là là, (FR)** _ **exclamation of surprised dismay  
**_ **j'ai oublié. (FR) I forgot.  
** **non, (FR) no,  
** **Chuis ici (FR) I'm here** _ **"chuis" is a shortening of "j'suis" which is a shortening of "je suis"  
**_ **s'il te plaît (FR) please** _ **informal  
**_ **m'sieur (FR) mister** _ **shortening of monsieur  
**_ **une enquête privée (FR) a private investigation  
** **M'sieur l'avocat bruyant (FR) Mr. loud lawyer  
** **Mais oui, keum (FR) Of course, man/dude** _ **"keum" is verlan slang  
**_ **dans l'histoire de la Californie. (FR) in the history of California.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Omg I accidentally uploaded a chapter of Alea Turnabout Est instead of this chapter at first. No one told me =x=**

* * *

 _April 28, 4:45 PM, Wright Anything Agency_

Wright and Jana returned to the law office to find that black-sweatered detective from the Kurain Village case sitting perched on the steps not far from the entrance, four-year-old case file in hand. In her other hand she had a cigarette, which she quickly snuffed out when Wright pointedly coughed.

"Salut M'sieur Wright," she said, looking up. Jana could have sworn she saw, before Detective Grantaire looked up, a perfectly blank expression instead of the usual open one sported by the frenchwoman.

"What brings you here, detective?" Wright said.

"I juste was picking up some old court records from a former colleague of yours," Detective Grantaire said. "Tu sais, the Ked Napp case."

"Ah, that one," Wright said, and stepped inside the office. Jana lingered outside.

"The Ked Napp case…" she said, "Ked Napp was the defendant in the L. A. Holmes trial, was he not? The one who was found innocent?"

"Ouias, of course," Detective Grantaire said, "sit down, mam'zelle. I found something très intéressant in this here."

Jana sat down wordlessly. She probably would have ignored Detective Grantaire if it hadn't been for last night.

Detective Grantaire pulled out a diagram - a map of Hiza Street, Lee Avenue, and the alleyway in between, where Alois had been kidnapped. "Four years ago," she said, "la victime finale of the serial kidnappings that been plaguing Los Angeles depuis dix ans was abducted in this alleyway." She pointed at a spot near the end of the alley close to Lee Avenue. "Et this is where the young witness to that final kidnapping saw almost the whole thing."

"Yes," Jana said. After all, she had been the one standing there four years ago.

Detective Grantaire slid her finger down the paper to the end of the alley close to Hiza Street. "Le témoin jeune gave the lépoux the plate number of the car. She knew the number so well it was like it had been burned into her mind. Ainsi, the lépoux concluded that the car the kidnapper was driving must have been right here, facing towards Hiza street."

"Yes, that is right," Jana said.

"Is it, though?" Detective Grantaire said, smiling at her. It seemed almost malicious. "I know, I know, mam'zelle. Ne touchez pas aux blessures guéries."

Jana waved a hand impatiently. "Continue," she said.

Detective Grantaire snapped the paper in her hand, and then indicated a space on the very edge of Hiza Street, perpendicular to the alley. "M'sieur Armando did some investigating while he was on the case. Naturellement, he visited the scene of the kidnapping. Mais, what should he find on the ground but leaked oil from the same car that le témoin jeune gave the license plate number of?" She tapped her finger. "There's une contradiction here. That little girl claimed to have seen the car driving down the alley towards Hiza Street, but the car was never _in_ the alley, and was on Hiza Street the whole time."

"That is impossible," Jana said firmly.

"That is what the evidence says."

There was a frustrated pause.

"I have not heard of this contradiction," Jana said.

"Of course not, petite. Theyn't look into it in court, because the license plate number had led the lépoux directly to L. A. Holmes and Ked Napp. Even if it was impossible for le témoin to have seen the license plate, what did it matter? Her témoignage was accurate. They let the contradiction go."

"How… could they?" Jana said.

Detective Grantaire gave a little laugh that almost sounded like a sigh. "Mam'zelle, you don't know this yet, mais you will someday. You were taught there there was only une vérité - only one truth. But… that is false. There are many truths. Contradictions arise when these truths conflict with each other." She gave Jana a shadowed look. "What you do in court is merely finding out which truth is the strongest one - which vérité devours the others."

"And this?" Jana said.

"They weren't ready," Detective Grantaire said, "they weren't ready for the fangs this truth has."

* * *

 _April 28, 4:45 PM, Prosecutor's Building, Alois' office_

The coroner's assistant had dropped off the autopsy report while Alois was out, but he had returned to his office to find it on his desk, and he was looking over it now. Everything was about how it had looked from the initial examination, except for one very important thing… a quarter found in the Jane Doe's abdominal cavity.

Not in one of her organs, as if she had swallowed it. It was in there like it had fallen in there, most likely during the moment of the murder. Naturally the quarter had immediately been handed over to forensics, since if it had fallen in there at the moment of the murder it probably fell from the murderer's pocket. If they were lucky, there would be fingerprints on it.

He flipped over to the other page. Forensics also had the clothes that the Jane Doe had been wearing when she was found. _Hoffentlich they'll get that forensic report in to me before the end of the day today_ , Alois thought, glancing at the clock, _so I can investigate tomorrow. I want to be able waschen meine Hände of this before the end of the week._

"Hey, kid," Detective Noir said, walking into his office with one of the Jane Doe posters in her hand, "we got an ID on the stiff."

"What?" Alois said sharply, looking up from the autopsy report.

Detective Noir raised an eyebrow. "Why're you so shocked?"

"Ah," Alois said, quickly covering his surprise, "usually it takes a little longer than this for the public to identify a victim, nein?"

Detective Noir frowned briefly - Alois would have to be an idiot to think she hadn't noticed his odd behavior during this case so far - then nodded. "More than a couple skid rogues peached us about this doll. Her name was Jantje, apparently. Hung around at the flophouse with the other bums sometimes."

"No last name?" Alois said.

"None given. Most everyone knew from dust about her. She just lammed in around July four years ago." She said that last part as though it were significant to her somehow, although Alois didn't get it. He didn't ask.

"Interessant," he said.

"By the way, the dicks over at forensics found two pretty hinky things on the dame's diapers. First, though, the quarter found in her had a pretty jake thumbprint on it that we can use to put the finger on the perp. I'm about to scram out for that joint near the dumpster where the stiff was found; figure I can find the wrong gee who zotzed her there. I got a good feeling about this one, boss."

"So you'll compare the fingerprints of everyone in the apartment complex to the one found on the quarter?" Alois said. Detective Noir nodded and handed him a warrant to sign. "What about what forensics found in ihre Kleidung?"

"There was a bit of blood that didn't belong to her."

"The killer's, you think?"

She was silent for half a moment before saying, "Yeah, that'd be kippy." She fished a small piece of paper in a plastic bag out of one of her trenchcoat's inner pockets and showed it to Alois. "This was the other thing."

Alois looked it at carefully. It was, as said before, a small slip of paper, curled slightly, with '6YJL401' written clearly on it. It must have been written by 'Jantje', because this was clearly Jana's handwriting… not that he could point that out. "Did the victim write this?" he asked anyway.

Detective Noir gave a noncommittal shrug. "It was found in a hidden pocket. Forensics almost missed it. Think this tomato might've been a grifter?"

"Ich glaube nicht…" Alois said, "this looks like a license plate number. Have you already run it?"

He didn't miss the way Detective Noir suddenly broke eye contact.

"Frau Detektivin Noir?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll run it," she said, "might end up just being something from one of her marks. Just something gumming the works…" She caught Alois' glance, then bowed out quickly.

Alois blinked as his door slammed.

What was going on?

* * *

 _November 17 (2057), 8:30 AM, Wright Anything Agency, Roof_

"Thought I might find you up here."

Jana glanced behind her. She scowled slightly at the sight of Misty, Phoenix Wright's other daughter who was one year older than Jana and seemingly hadn't smiled once in the past two years.

"Leave," Jana said stiffly, looking back out over the city. Some people on their way to work were buying breakfast from the third generation of Eldoon's Noodles to operate in this area.

Misty just stood behind her. Jana felt the prickling on the back of her neck that indicated Misty was staring at her. She had kind of an intense stare, something she'd inherited from her mother, everyone said.

"You shouldn't be trying to rewrite someone's past," she said.

Jana grunted.

"Do you know what kind of sacrifices you're going to have to make?"

"I refuse to accept this as the alpha timeline."

"It doesn't matter whether you accept it or not."

Jana stood up angrily, rounding on Misty. " _Not accepting it_ is not the only thing I am doing," she snapped, "I will change what happened. I will bring an end to this before it brings an end to my brother's life."

Misty scrutinized her for a long while, then laughed. Jana was taken aback.

"Jana," she said, "we're a lot alike, aren't we?"

Jana's whip flew through the air; Misty caught it. They stood like that, Jana's hand tight on the handle, the striking end wrapped around Misty's hand, and the whip stretched taut between them, trembling in the late fall breeze.

"I am nothing like you," Jana whispered.

"You are," Misty said, "our brothers are lucky to have us."

Jana yanked her whip back hard enough that Misty took an unintentional step forward. "You _sold_ yourself," Jana snarled, "to that _witch_ , and to the Tula Group. I will _never_ sink as low as you. I will do things my own way."

Misty just glared at her. Jana marched to the door that lead back into the building.

"There's one more thing they have against Miguel," Misty said as Jana wrenched open the door.

Jana stopped. "…what?"

"Alois' body was found lying against his door - although I'm sure you've seen the crime scene."

"…"

Misty's expression changed slightly, giving her a more shadowed look. Jana was reminded of the first time she'd met this version of Misty - she had been fourteen then, and by that point Alois had already known her for months. "He was killed by someone who was in his condo. They ruled out a break-in, too. It was someone he let in."

"…I see," said Jana, and then she descended the stairs into WAA.

* * *

 _April 28 (2054), 5:00 PM, Prosecutor's Building_

For the third time that day, someone approached Miguel with the need to discuss something confidential with him. This time, though, it was Detective Noir, whom Miguel felt a little awkward around considering he hadn't had a full conversation with her since that case last December.

"Yeah?" he said, taking a sip of coffee. He had just been leaving for the day (since he was still waiting on the Soergei case) and Detective Noir had started walking next to him in the hallway. Her expression was unusually grave, not that Detective Noir didn't always have a serious, if somewhat self-assured, expression.

"It's about that case Alois is on," she said, "I think it's related to that snatcher case from four years ago."

"You're kidding."

"Wish I was."

"L. A. Holmes?"

Detective Noir nodded. She wasn't even looking at Miguel while she spoke, just watching where she was walking. She quickly described what forensics had found in 'Jantje's' clothes, then said, "I thought I made that plate number, so I ran it before I went to give Alois the low down. It was the murder house alright."

"And the blood?" Miguel said.

"Haven't tested it yet. You still got that carpet sample?"

"Of course," Miguel said, "it's still got another three years to go before it's considered a cold case. I'm still technically heading it up."

Detective Noir nodded again, more absently this time, then looked at Miguel. "Take over the Jantje case," she said.

"What?"

"Take over the Jantje case," she repeated, "sure, it's been all silk so far, but I don't trust Alois being high pillow of this one. Too much risk. Too much could go wrong."

"He could remember," Miguel said.

"Oh, he'll remember eventually anyway," Detective Noir said, "but not like this, Prosecutor Fey. Not like this."

* * *

 _September 1 (2047), 8:45 PM, Gavin Estate, Backyard_

"We're going to get caught," Watson hissed.

"These were the coordinates I had," Ares hissed back, both irritated and defensive.

"It's not like they'll remember us anyway, if they see us," Misty E said from where she was squatting between the two of them. "What are we looking for here, anyway, Mrs. Justice?"

They were all looking through the window into the von Karma-Gavin's family room - they weren't noticed since the sun had set over an hour and a half ago - at Miguel Fey-Armando, age sixteen, junior at Themis Academy, and self-proclaimed greatest babysitter in the entire LA metropolitan area. Although he rarely, if ever, watched kids who weren't Alois and Jana, aged ten and eight, respectively. They adored him, though, so as far as their parents were concerned, it didn't matter.

"…why _are_ we here, actually?" Watson said at length. How was she supposed to get blackmail from watching Miguel play video games with a pair of kids?

"Well," Ares said, "I was thinking about what we could possibly catch Miguel out on, and I thought about those rumors about him and Alois-"

"Alois is his co-worker," Watson said, "I know I used to give him grief over it, but you really can't blame him for not remembering he's a teenager."

"Well, I just thought, since it's not like Alois _looks_ any older than he actually is…"

Misty E interjected. "Are you saying he's a…?"

"And what do we have here?" came a voice from behind them. Ares and Watson jumped. Misty E was facing the origin of the voice in a heartbeat, still crouched but muscles tensed now, ready to spring. Ares and Watson turned around, too.

" _Miguel?!_ " Watson said in horror.

"What?" he said, with a sneer. "I'm Macario Armando. Don't forget it." But he did look like Miguel. Not the 16-year-old one in the von Karmas' living room, and not the one 23-year-old one in the prosecutors' office - this one looked like he was pushing thirty. He wasn't dressed in a vest and tie - rather, in a long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants - and he wasn't wearing a magatama, either. His normally flyaway hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, and he had stubble, and - strangest of all - only one eye, the other one apparently bisected by a thin scar that went all the way down the left side of his face and covered with a bright red eyepatch.

Ares caught Misty E's expression of shock.

"Who…?" Watson was saying in a small voice.

"The guy who's not going to let you bother the alpha alpha version of myself," he said, "now piss off."

"What does it matter what we're doing to the-" Watson was trying to argue as Misty E was grabbing hers and Are's wrists and pulling them up, face pale.

"The game's afoot," Macario said, making a gesture that very closely telegraphed his father when he was thinking, "and it seems all the trash ends up here."

"In the alpha timeline?" Ares said. Macario gave him a very penetrating look.

"You'd better go," he said, teeth bared. "And take your insane half-sister and your whore with you."

Neither Ares nor said insane half-sister had any time to protest before Misty E dragged them through a time door. A suddenly on-guard Miguel put down his controller and checked the window.

No one was there.

Meanwhile, in 2054, Watson, Ares, and Misty E were in the LA Central parking garage again.

"What- what was that?" Watson said, pressing one hand against her forehead.

"Macario Armando, didn't you hear him," Ares said.

"That doesn't answer my question," Watson snapped at him.

Misty E grabbed Watson's arm roughly, giving her a warning look. "I can tell you who he is," she said, "I know him. He's from my timeline."

"He is?" Watson and Ares said at the same time.

* * *

 _April 29 (2054), 6:10 AM, Gavin Estate_

"Guten Morgen, Jana, Onkel Kristoph," Alois yawned as he drifted into the kitchen for some breakfast. Kristoph nodded at him over his newspaper. Jana mumbled a "Guten Morgen" back; she was poring over her court record as she ate her sausage.

 _On a case?_ Alois wondered, glancing over her shoulder as he passed her. Hmm… didn't look like her normal investigation notes.

"Learning Japanese, are you, kleine Schwester?" he said as he grabbed a plate.

"Hm?" Jana looked up. "What makes you say that?"

"The hirigana in your notebook, na sicher. Usually people learn the hirigana alphabet before katakana, and katakana before kanji."

"Mm."

Alois sat down across from her. "Just be careful, ja?"

"Careful of what?"

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "A lot of nihongo rookies think that, since Japanese is read right-to-left, that applies to horizontal text as well. But that's not how yokogaki works. What you have in your notebook should be read left-to-right, like English."

"I know," Jana said.

"When did you learn Japanese, Alois?" Kristoph said without looking up from his newspaper.

"Herr Blackquill," was the only explanation Alois gave. That was the only explanation that was needed.

* * *

" **Jantje" is a Dutch variant of "Jana".**

" **Macario" is a (shockingly) Spanish name that means… ironically… happy/blessed. Are we gonna be seeing this guy again after this fic? Yes. Yes we are. (Please tell me y'all caught how one of his lines mimicked something Miguel said in Cool Cat Turnabout.)**

 **Translations:  
** **Salut (FR) Hi/Hello  
** **juste (FR) just  
** **Tu sais, (FR) You know,** _ **informal  
**_ **Ouias, (FR) Yeah,  
** **mam'zelle. (FR) miss.** _ **a shortening of "mademoiselle" which is used for young girls  
**_ **très intéressant (FR) very interesting  
** **la victime finale (FR) the final victim  
** **depuis dix ans (FR) for ten years  
** **Et (FR) And  
** **Le témoin jeune (FR) The young witness  
** **lépoux (FR) cops** _ **verlan slang  
**_ **Ainsi, (FR) So,  
** **Ne touchez pas aux blessures guéries. (FR) Don't open old scars.** _ **literally, Don't touch healed wounds.  
**_ **Naturellement, (FR) Naturally,  
** **Mais, (FR) But,  
** **une contradiction (FR) a contradiction  
** **petite. (FR) kid.** _ **literally, the feminine form of little  
**_ **témoignage (FR) testimony  
** **une vérité (FR) one truth  
** **Hoffentlich (DE) Hopefully  
** **waschen meine Hände (DE) to wash my hands  
** **Interessant, (DE) Interesting,  
** **ihre Kleidung? (DE) her clothes?  
** **Ich glaube nicht… (DE) I don't think/believe so…  
** **Guten Morgen, (DE) Good morning,  
** **kleine Schwester? (DE) little sister?  
** **na sicher. (DE) of course.  
** **nihongo (JP) Japanese** _ **the language, not a Japanese person**_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Don't forget to check the Janaverse tag on my tumblr.**

* * *

 _July 11 (2050), 10:00 AM, District Court, Courtroom No. 1_

"Court is now in session for the trial of Ked Napp," said a judge with braided hair, who was around the chief prosecutor's age.

"The defense is ready, your Honor," said Diego Armando.

"The prosecution is ready, your Honor," said Miguel Fey-Armando, age nineteen. It was his debut, and no matter how cool he was playing it right now, everyone knew he was internally freaking out.

Mostly because he was debuting against his own father.

"Before we begin," said the Judge calmly, "I'd like to ask the prosecution what I should call him…"

"'Fey' is fine, your Honor."

"Very well. Prosecutor Fey, it has come to my attention that it is… uncertain if the defendant is competent to stand trial?"

"Yes, your Honor," Miguel said, "while he does, uh, exhibit delusional tendencies, the prosecution believes that he is more than fit to answer for his crimes."

"Mr. Armando?" the Judge said. "How do you argue?"

"The defense asserts that Mr. Napp is completely innocent in this matter," Armando said, taking a swig of coffee, "delusional or not."

"I see," said the Judge. "I'd like to see this for myself. Defendant," she extended a hand, "please take the stand."

"Witness, name and occupation," Miguel said once Mr. Napp was ready.

"My name is Herman Webster Mudgett, also known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes," Ked Napp said, "I run a hotel."

"What year were you born, witness?" the Judge said.

"1861."

There was some murmuring in the gallery, which the Judge quickly dispelled with a tap of her golden gavel. "What year is it now, witness?" she asked.

"2050, of course."

"So you are 189 years old?"

Napp shook his head. "I'm only 30, your Honor."

"Do you know what crime you've been charged with?" Miguel said.

"Yes, naturally," Napp said calmly, "I kidnapped 25 people over the course of the last ten years, and when the police caught up to me on Friday, the eighth, I butchered them all."

* * *

 _April 27 (2054), 11:45 PM, Los Angeles Central Hospital, Parking lot_

"This Macario Armando guy is from the alpha lambda timeline?" Ares said, "the same one you're from, E?"

Misty E nodded vigorously. "Well, actually, sir, I've never met him before in my life. So I guess I don't really _know_ him, sir, but I do know _of_ him."

"Well, who is he?" Watson said impatiently.

"In my timeline," Misty E said, still addressing Ares, "the people you know as Maria and Miguel Fey-Armando are actually twins, Maritza and Macario Armando. They were born around the time my daddy - Phoenix Wright - first met Mia Fey."

"So, when she was still alive?" Ares said.

"Yes, sir. In my timeline, sir, Mia Fey and Diego Armando were already married by the time of the Dahlia Hawthorne case. Anyway, I always knew Maritza growing up, and she actually had kids around my age, but… Macario, sir, he went missing a couple years before I was born."

"Huh," said Ares.

"But I've seen pictures of him before, sir, and I have to say he didn't look the way he does now. He looked a lot more like Miguel Fey-Armando, only older, sir."

"No eyepatch?" Watson said.

"Nope."

"Huh," said Watson this time.

"…so," Ares said after a very long pause, "what are we going to do about Punished 'Venom' Miguel?"

Watson gave him a dirty look. "We don't have time for jokes about forty-year-old video games, Ares. Set up another set of coordinates, I'm getting my blackmail tonight and no _Macario Armando_ is going to stop me."

"Tch. Alright, alright," Ares said, taking the time-travel device that Misty E handed him, "chill."

* * *

 _April 29, 9:50 AM, Grape Water Apartment Complex, Room no. 280_

Detective Noir tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for a call back from Prosecutor Fey. She'd asked him _yesterday_ to get forensics to run that blood sample from Jantje's clothes against the blood sample from the case four years ago. She supposed it was taking him so long because she had asked him as he was leaving work - or more likely, because he was trying to run some evidence from an old case of his against some evidence from a current case of another prosecutor, without telling said prosecutor he was doing this.

Maybe all this was just Detective Noir's deep, _deep_ need to get to get to the bottom of the L. A. Holmes case. After all, it could still turn out that this case really _was_ unrelated.

That wasn't what her gut was telling her, of course. Her gut was telling her that the blood on Jantje's clothes had belonged to her killer the same way the blood on the floor back then had belonged to the true culprit, not that poor, goofy sap Ked Napp.

But maybe, too, the fact that Jantje had 6YJL401 on her was just a coincidence. Maybe Jantje was just another person whose life had been affected by the hostage massacre, and she had just kept that on her as a reminder. Detective Noir did something similar, after all.

She snorted. It was probably going to be another couple hours before Miguel or forensics called, assuming that even happened today. And even if the blood matched - so what? Sure, if it also matched the guy she'd already pinched, they could make a case that he was, in fact, the man behind the murders four years ago. (And they could transfer this case over to Miguel once and for all, leaving Alois out of this entirely.) But if it didn't?

Then the blood really _would_ just be a coincidence. After all, all the evidence pointed towards the suspect as being the perp.

Maybe a little _too_ much evidence, Detective Noir realized, looking around his apartment.

Lars Ennie was a divorcé pushing fifty, with two teenaged children and a high-ranking job at some bank. He lived by himself in this middlingly modest apartment and had a tendency to drink. His neighbors reported him coming home drunk the night of the twenty-sixth, the night of the crime, around 9:00, the estimated time of death. That next morning he'd left for Tracy on business, and was only just coming back to the apartment building about 45 minutes ago when the police caught up with him in the entrance lobby. He'd quickly consented to having his fingerprints taken - "Always ready to help the police, got nothing to hide," he had said nervously - and when his thumbprint had been a perfect match to the one on the quarter, he had been quickly arrested.

The apartment was a mess. Blood everywhere - Detective Noir was surprised the person living below hadn't complained about anything seeping through their ceiling these past few days. Forensics was all over the transfer patterns in the blood - they could see exactly where Jantje had fallen, where she had struggled and fought back, and where she had been picked up, blood dripping, to be carried to the dumpster.

There hadn't been any blood in the hallway for that, since her body had been wrapped in one of Ennie's jackets. Said jacket had been brought back to the apartment, probably to avoid leaving identifying evidence in the dumpster with the body, and left on the couch. In addition to the bloody jacket, there was also a slightly discolored coat with patches on the elbows that looked to be about Jantje's size, and the knife that she had been killed with - a big, ominous kitchen knife meant for cutting chicken, not humans, that had Ennie's fingerprints all over the handle, in addition to partials from Jantje.

She really tried to fight back.

Detective Noir frowned. This was certainly enough evidence to lock him up, and nothing seemed out of place, except… shouldn't Ennie have tried to clean up before he left for Tracy? Sure, he had evidently been drunk when the crime took place, and sure, he would have been hungover the next morning when he made tracks. Maybe him not cleaning up anything would have been believable, _if_ he hadn't returned to Los Angeles. Why would he do that?

Plus, the Jack the Ripper-style surgical precision was _odd_ coming from a drunk businessman with no medical background… that they knew of.

She stepped back into the hallway. Alois had just been talking to one of the neighbors, Dr. Kamosinko's assistant. He caught her eye, than walked over to her.

"What's your story, morning glory?" Detective Noir asked.

"Fräulein Proserpine also heard screaming the night of the twenty-sixth," Alois said, "but she also didn't think it was anything serious."

Detective Noir rolled her eyes. "That's two people who heard that broad take the big one, and neither of them dropped a dime. What a curve."

"Neither of our witnesses said they heard her scream 'Help' or 'Stop' or anything like that," Alois said, raising his eyebrows, "so they thought the screams were… sonstwas."

"I suppose that explains how Jantje got into Ennie's apartment - if she was a pro skirt…"

Alois got an odd look on his face. "Ich glaube nicht. Has anyone who knew her said anything to that effect?"

Detective Noir shook her head. "Nah, but I still need to go see if anyone makes the coat. If they were her rags, then we might get a better idea of what went down in here." Since, after all, the lack of knife-tears on the coat would indicate that she had removed it willingly once she was in the apartment.

"Übrigens, Frau Detektivin Noir, did you run the plate number forensics found?"

 _Tread carefully, Blanche_ , Detective Noir told herself before answering, "Yo, it was registered to one Julia Smythe. A fake name," she added, suddenly unable to met Alois' eyes, "and the address given was the joint where that hostage massacre took place four years ago."

Alois gave her a quizzical look. "Hostage massacre?" he said. "Oh, I… think I remember hearing about that once or twice. Something to do with a serial kidnapper, ja?"

"Something like that."

Alois shrugged. "Naja, there's no reason to think that note had anything to do with this case. Perhaps Fräulein Jantje kept the plate number on her as a reminder of what happened four years ago."

"…yeah," Detective Noir said, "that's what I was thinking."

But… how did Jantje get that plate number? Was she investigating the case on her own? And had that lead to her death…?

* * *

 _April 29, 10:30 AM, Wright Anything Agency_

"You gotta help me," cried the thirteen-year-old girl with black lipstick and a band t-shirt, "my father's been accused of murdering a homeless woman! But he didn't do it!"

"I tried to get her to calm down before bringing her back here," Maya Valerie said, quickly washing her hands of the girl her age's hysteria.

"It's fine, Valerie," said Justice, "alright, kid, let's start with your name-"

"My name's Ash Ennie," she blurted out, "my father's name is Lars Ennie. He's a banker. He was in Tracy the past two days, and mom just got a call from the detention center - he's been arrested! The police say he murdered a homeless woman, but he'd never do that!"

"Where is your mom?" Justice said, glancing behind her at the door to the Agency.

"Uh- she, um, doesn't care if he was arrested or not. They're divorced."

One of Justice's eyebrows twitched. He was a divorcé himself, _and_ separated from his current wife. Most likely the thought had crossed his mind of how Judge Juniper Justice or Detective Skye would act would act if _he_ happened to be arrested. "Alright, Ash," he said, "you and your dad will be just fine. We'll handle things." He turned around. "Hey, Wat! You want to take this one?"

Watson's head jerked up from her desk (Diego Armando's old desk), where she had been sleeping - which was, in Jana's opinion, the only time she was tolerable. "What?" she said, blinking rapidly.

"I said, do you want to take this case? It's been a while since you-"

"I'm good," she yawned, "you can defend this one, Dad," and then she went back to her nap.

Justice rolled his eyes, irritated, and turned back to Ash. "Sorry about that. Let's go see your dad at the detention center, alright?"

"Alright!" Ash yelled, grabbing Apollo by the hand and dragging him out the door, giving him barely enough time to snag his notebook off his desk before the door slammed behind them.

"I'm surprised you didn't volunteer, Jana," Maria Fey-Armando interrupted the silence that ensued with a raised eyebrow. "It has been a whole month since your last case."

"Mm," Jana said. She writing in her notebook, carefully rewriting future Alois' dying message - in reverse. After all, if Alois himself had specifically identified hirigana as the alphabet people learn first, and had said that newbies sometimes got yokogaki backwards…

ご んりしいるくざ

ざくるいしりんご

"What's this?" Maria said, walking over and looking over Jana's shoulder. "Japanese?" she said, standing back up and taking a sip of her xocolatl.

Jana blinked. "Maria, you speak Japanese, do you not?"

"Not a lot, but yes."

"What does this mean?" Jana said. Maya Valerie came over to look at Jana's notebook, too.

"Let me see," she said, taking the notebook from Jana and reading it carefully. "Go-n-ri-shi-i-ru-ku-za… za-ku-ru-i-shi-ri-n-go. Maria, what does that mean?"

"'Gonrishiirukuza' doesn't mean anything," Maria said, "but 'zakuruishi ringo' means 'garnet apple'." She frowned. "Strange… no one really uses the word 'zakuruishi' anymore… and you'd think it'd be 'zakuruishi _no_ ringo', otherwise it's just words mashed together…"

"I see," said Jana. She didn't, actually. _Garnet apple?_ What did _that_ mean? And what did that have to do with 'MF-A'?

* * *

 _July 11 (2050), 10:30 AM, District Court, Courtroom No. 1_

"A witness - whose name will be withheld due to her age - managed to get the license plate number of the car the culprit was driving," Miguel said, leaning smugly over the bench, "the number was immediately traced. Registered to a Julia Smythe."

"My client sure doesn't look like a Julia Smythe to me," Armando said calmly.

"Of course it wasn't registered under his _real name_ \- Julia Smythe was the historic H. H. Holmes' lover, and one of his victims."

"And a woman," Armando said.

Miguel cleared his throat. "Actually, when we first arrested the defendant, he was wearing women's clothing."

"Oh," said the Judge flatly.

"Anyway… the address on the plate led us to a large house just outside of Hollywood. A former hotel, by the looks of it, and since the incident we've checked the deeds and the owner of the house is also this fictional Julia Smythe. The defendant claims that he owns that house."

"Hm," Armando said. It sounded like he'd seen a contradiction, but he was staying silent for now, so Miguel kept talking.

"Unfortunately, when the police arrived, they were met at the door by one of the now-deceased, Abraham Duction. He told the police that the kidnapper was not willing to surrender, and was then stabbed in the back. The door was barricaded immediately after that." The already-quiet courtroom seemed to grow even more soundless as he continued: "For the next eleven hours, the police attempted to negotiate. Around midnight, they stormed the building, only to find twenty-five dead bodies and the defendant. Mr. Napp confessed at the scene to killing all the hostages during the negotiation process."

"What were his demands during the negotiation?" the Judge asked.

"None, your Honor," Miguel said, "he claimed, through a hostage, that he only kidnapped people because he was so angry at the world. He had no other way of quelling the deep rage inside of him… he was unwilling to give up his 'prizes', and that's why he murdered them all."

* * *

 _July 11, 12:15 PM, District Court, Courtroom no. 2_

Armando slammed the bottom of his coffee mug on the defense bench. "Are you proposing my client began the serial kidnappings as a child?"

"The defendant claims to be thirty. He would have started the kidnappings at age twenty," Miguel said, "which is more than possible."

Armando shook his head. "The records are clear - he was reported missing ten years ago, _at age twelve_. My client's true age is 22."

"Objection!" Miguel said, "I…"

"You didn't check, Prosecutor Fey?" said the Judge, her severe tone undercutting her pleasant expression.

"I… was not informed that the defendant was ever reported a missing person," Miguel said, clenching his hands to keep them from trembling. "Da- Mr. Armando. Was he reported missing from the state of California?"

"Wyoming," Armando said.

"That explains why I didn't know. Still," he said, recovering, "the house where the crime took place has been owned by 'Julia Smythe' for twelve years now. The defendant can't have moved to Los Angeles twelve years ago _and_ gone missing in Wyoming ten years ago! Which means," Miguel exclaimed, throwing his hand out, "the defendant isn't really Ked Napp!"

The gallery burst into discussion. The Judge tapped her gavel.

"Or," Armando said, "the defendant isn't really Julia Smythe."

"Then who is?" Miguel said.

"That spot of blood on the floor that didn't match any of the victims," Armando said, "who does it belong to?"

"…"

Armando continued. "It was fresh, from the day of the crime. Yet it matched no one there - not even my client, or one of the police officers who stormed the place. So," he leaned forward over the defense bench, "whose is it? Who does that blood belong to?"

"…someone who managed to escape," Miguel said.

"Yes, a victim who managed to escape," Armando said, "or perhaps… the real culprit."

Miguel slammed his fist on the bench. "You- you can't build an entire case off of an unidentified spot of blood!"

"I can and I will," Armando retorted. "Your Honor! The defense proposes that the real culprit escaped and left one of their longest-imprisoned victims to take the fall! And that blood's the proof!"

* * *

 **The Judge in this chapter was actually Justine Courtney from GK2. And I'll have you know I don't speak a dang word of Japanese.**

" **Maritza" is a Latin American variant of "Maria".  
** " **Lars Ennie" is a pun on "larceny". He's the person Rachel DeLite was trying to steal from in Sleeping Turnabout, if anyone remembers that.  
** " **Ash Ennie" is a pun on "astheny", also known as asthenia, an abnormal loss of strength.  
** **Abraham Duction… Abe Duction… "abduction"… hahaha…**

 **Also you have no idea how tempting it was to just straight-up write Detective Noir's entire POV section in full-blown Dashiell Hammett-style hardboiled 30s detective slang.**

 **Translations:  
** **sonstwas. (DE) something else.  
** **Übrigens, (DE) by the way,  
** **Naja, (DE) Well,**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: *Jeb Bush voice* Please review...**

* * *

 _July 11, 2:45 PM, District Court, Prosecutor's Lobby no. 1_

"Good job in there today, kid," Armando said.

Miguel gave a half-laugh. "I lost."

"The truth came out. Ked Napp is innocent."

"We didn't find the real culprit, though."

"There wasn't anyone else there to _be_ the real culprit," Maria said, walking into the room. She took a swig of her coffee. "The real culprit got away clean."

"Not for long," Miguel said, putting one hand on his hip. "Since Napp wasn't guilty, that means the case is ongoing - and I'm in charge of it." He grinned maliciously. "I'm going to find the person who was _really_ behind this, and I'm going to make sure they get the death sentence."

"Settle down, Miguel," Armando said, although he was smiling too.

"Yeah, we all know about your personal stake in this case," Maria said, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, I'd be fired up even if every single victim _had_ been a complete stranger. I'm a prosecutor, it's my _job_ to put these lunatics behind bars." He shook his head. "My goal is to find this lunatic before my kitten gets out of his psychiatric hold at the hospital."

"And if you can't?" Armando said, taking a sip of his own coffee.

An overconfidently insincere answer: "Then I'll just ask those religious nutjobs Maria's always hanging out with to say a prayer for me."

"Hey!" Maria said, nudging him, "I'll have you know they're the nicest damn people I've ever met. Don't be so harsh!"

"Maria, they think coffee is of the devil!"…

* * *

 _April 29 (2054), 11:30 PM, Gavin Estate, Jana's room_

Since Jana couldn't actually see the time door itself, her future self stepping through it looked more like someone materializing in her room. It was weird. Future Jana seemed unsurprised to see that Jana was still up, dressed, and sitting on her bed with the lamp on.

"I have been waiting for you," she said.

Future Jana nodded. "Then we must go."

* * *

 _April 30, 9:50 AM, District Court, Defendant's Lobby no. 9_

"Are you ready for this?" Apollo asked Lars Ennie.

Ennie shook his head. "They really think I did it… I'm telling you, I don't know what happened!"

"We'll get this cleared up," Apollo said. "Now, tell me again what happened the night of the crime…?" Ennie had, in the detention center, been too much of an upset, nervous wreck to tell Apollo much of anything useful.

"I - I just came home, and, well, I know I was drunk but everything was normal!" Ennie insisted, "no blood, no dead bodies, nothing. I went straight to bed - er, actually, I fell asleep on the couch, but still. I got up the next morning and I'd overslept a bit so I had to run out so I could drive up to Tracy. I just grabbed my suitcase, which was next to the door, and left. But… my apartment was totally clean when I left… no blood… I didn't kill her!"

"I believe you, Mr. Ennie," Apollo said, "calm down."

"Actually, now that I think about it," Ennie said abruptly, "I don't actually remember _leaving_ my suitcase right next to my front door. Yeah, I had it packed before I went out to grab a few drinks, but… I left it in my bedroom… maybe I moved it while I was drunk…?" he trailed off.

"Maybe," Apollo said. Internally, he filed that comment away. Maybe that _meant_ something.

* * *

 _April 30, 10:00 AM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9_

"Court is now in session for the trial of Lars Ennie."

"The prosecution is ready, your Honor," said Alois.

"The defense is ready as well… your Honor," Apollo said. He always felt awkward defending at trials where his ex-wife was presiding - especially after the last time their son had gotten arrested - but they both managed to stay professional in court, no matter their shared past.

"Mr. Gavin," said the Judge, "your opening statement, please."

Alois nodded once. "On the night of the night of the twenty-sixth, a… _drifter_ going by the name of 'Jantje' was murdered in the defendant, Lars Ennie's, home, room 280 of Grape Water Apartment Complex. Around the time of the crime, Mr. Ennie was witnessed returning to his room after an evening of drinking."

"I see," said the Judge, "any questions so far, defense?"

"None, your Honor," Apollo said.

"Very well. Mr. Gavin, your first witness please."

"To outline the case, the prosecution calls Detective Noir to the stand… witness, name and occupation."

"Blanche Noir," said the detective, "LAPD dick, reporting directly to Prosecutor Alois."

Apollo had always kind of wondered about that. He was long used to prosecutors having 'pet' detectives - like the chief prosecutor and the current chief of police, for a time, or Alois' father and Apollo's estranged wife, for a shorter time - but he figured a direct assignment was an unusual circumstance. Apollo chalked it up to nepotism; after all, both of Alois' parents _were_ prosecutors, and his mother was the adopted sister of the chief prosecutor…

"Please tell us about the evidence recovered, detective," Alois was saying.

"The thing that clued us on to the defendant was the quarter found in the abdominal cavity of the vic," Detective Noir said, "it must have fallen from his pocket while he was blipping her off. The quarter had a perfect thumbprint on it, which we matched to Ennie alright. So we checked his elbows.

"In his joint we found the victim's blood all over the place, along with the shiv used to kill her - came from his kitchen, and he'd put his flippers all over it. Additionally, when he was dropping the stiff in the dumpster, he'd wrapped her in his jacket so she wouldn't drip blood all over the hallway. So we also recovered the jacket with Jantje's blood on it from Ennie's apartment."

The Judge nodded gravely. "Mr. Justice, your cross-examination, please."

Apollo pressed a finger against his forehead. "Detective," he said, "can you elaborate on the witness testimony Prosecutor von Karma-Gavin mentioned?"

"Sure," she said, "we got two witnesses, the jasper who lives in room 281 and the jane who lives in room 279. They both saw Ennie coming back from out on the roof around the time of the crime, and they both heard screaming coming from his place."

"Out on the roof?" Apollo said.

Detective Noir rolled her eyes. "You know, dipping the bill. Putting down some giggle juice."

 _Drinking_ , Apollo realized. He knew that. "Did these witnesses hear the screaming before or after my client returned to his apartment?"

"The cat in room 281 was sleeping when he heard the commotion, so he isn't sure," Detective Noir said.

"But the woman in room 279 is prepared as a witness," Alois said smugly, "so perhaps you should save your questions, Mr. Justice."

 _Told off by a kid about a third my age_ , Apollo thought, exasperated. "Detective," he continued, "can you tell us how exactly the crime went down?"

"That's a little uncertain," she said, "since neither of our witnesses could tell us how Jantje got in Ennie's room. Judging by her coat, which we found perfectly intact at the crime scene, that frail went into Ennie's apartment of her own accord."

"She entered, she removed her coat as one does with any social visit," Alois said, "and then he killed her and moved her body to the dumpster."

"The Chinese angle on this is that Jantje was apparently in Ennie's joint before he was," Detective Noir said, "although the doors at Grape Water lock electronically - anyone with the code can step in. Jantje must have had it."

"Did my client know Jantje?" Apollo said.

"A connection to her has yet to be proven," Alois said, "although she _was_ killed in his apartment…"

"And one more thing," Apollo said, "if my client were the real killer, then doesn't his behavior seem a little… odd to anyone else?"

"What do you mean?" said the Judge.

"Well, for one thing, if he left for Tracy immediately after the crime, why would he return to Los Angeles?" Apollo said, "especially since there aren't any signs that anyone tried to clean up the crime scene… at all. What kind of murderer would just leave it like that?"

"I think the question is less ' _Why_ would Mr. Ennie return to Los Angeles,'" Alois said, "and more 'What would have _made_ Mr. Ennie return to Los Angeles?'"

Apollo narrowed his eyes. That sounded exactly like something Mr. Wright would say; he wondered if Alois were mocking him.

"Furthermore," he continued regardless, pulling out the autopsy report, "witness testimony has established that the defendant was drunk the night of the crime. I'm not saying a drunk person can't stab someone to death, but making such precise cuts?" He slammed his fists on the defense bench. "Maybe I could buy it if my client were a surgeon, but Mr. Ennie is a banker! There's no way he'd be able to _do_ this while drunk - even _if_ he could do it while sober!"

The gallery started talking amongst themselves. The Judge quickly silenced them.

Alois sure had his father's grin alright.

"You're making a lot of assumptions, aren't you, Mr. Justice?" he said.

"What?" Apollo said.

"You don't actually have a way of proving that the defendant was drunk the night of the crime, and neither do we. After all, he spent two days in Tracy before getting arrested - we can't test his BAC. So, is it not possible that Mr. Ennie played off of his reputation of being a bit of a drunkard to make himself seem less suspicious to his neighbors?"

"Are you saying my client faked being drunk the night of the twenty-sixth?"

"I'm saying it's a possibility."

Apollo frowned. "Fine," he said, "but I still think it's impossible for a man with no medical background to make cuts like these."

"Actually," Detective Noir said, and Apollo's frown deepened, "while it isn't a medical background per se, within the past five years Mr. Ennie was taking some night classes down at Ivy U. Specifically, biology classes."

"So he certainly would have experience with dissecting things," Alois said.

 _Welp, that contradiction just went up in smoke_. "…I have no further questions for this witness," he said at length.

"Very well," the Judge said, "Detective Noir, you are dismissed. Mr. Gavin?"

"The prosecution calls Jackie Proserpine, the resident of room 279, to the stand."

A scrawny woman with a slightly crooked nose and straight black hair covering one eye took the stand. She looked tired, and Apollo wondered if it was because of the murder in the apartment next to hers, or if she just always looked like that.

"Witness, name and occupation."

"My name is Jackie Proserpine," she said in dull matter-of-factness, "I'm the coroner's assistant at the Los Angeles County Morgue."

"Coroner's assistant…?" Apollo said, "you mean, under Dr. Kamosinko?" He looked at the autopsy report that listed that man as the one to perform the autopsy.

"Yes," she said, "I work for Dr. Kamosinko. He and I were actually the ones who performed the autopsy on the Jane Doe - I mean, Jantje. I assume you were about to ask that."

Apollo nodded.

"Witness," Alois said pointedly, "you're here to tell the court about what you saw and heard the night of the crime."

"Although if the defense wishes to cross-examine you about the autopsy itself," the Judge said, "he may do so. _After_ your testimony."

Jackie nodded, putting her hands on her hips. "On the night of the twenty-sixth, around nine o'clock-ish, I was just putting my trash out when I saw Ennie returning from, I presume, the bar. He was most certainly drunk. He went into apartment 280, and I went to bed. I heard screaming. Didn't think anything of it, though."

"The screaming the witness heard was almost definitely Jantje," Alois said. "Since it was, after all, coming from the crime scene, at the time of the crime…"

This really didn't look good for Ennie…

"Mr. Justice, your cross-examination, please."

Apollo took a breath. "Witness," he said, "first off, why exactly _didn't_ you think anything of the screaming? Personally, I don't think I _wouldn't think anything of it_ if someone in the apartment next to me were getting murdered."

"It wasn't like she was screaming 'Stop it' or 'Help me' or anything," Jackie said dismissively.

"Really?" Apollo said, looking at the autopsy report again. "She had defensive wounds - she clearly tried to fight back. I find it hard to believe that-"

"The other witness, the man from room 281, also said that he didn't hear any cries for help," Apollo said, "just screams."

"…well, I still think a woman screaming in a single man's apartment would be suspicious," Apollo said, "although I suppose the witness doesn't agree with me."

Jackie half-rolled her eyes. "I didn't even think it was a woman," she said, "I thought it was Ennie… that he'd found a spider or something in his living room."

Apollo's bracelet contracted slightly, although he dismissed it. She had been apparently truthful so far, so he figured she was just saying "I thought it was a spider" to cover what she had really thought, which was potentially… inappropriate?

"His living room?" he said. "Why do you say his living room?"

"It sounded like the screams were coming from his living room," Jackie said.

Apollo pondered this for a second. That would be right, yes, since it was living room area of the apartment where Jantje had been murdered. But how was Jackie able to identify the screams as coming specifically from the living room? She must know the layout of Ennie's apartment, in that case… perhaps she had been there before? They were neighbors, after all.

"How long did it take for the screams to stop?" Apollo said.

"Longer than I thought they would," Jackie said, "with the kind of stab wounds she had, I would have expected Jantje to bleed out within a minute, but the screaming continued for almost five."

Apollo blinked. _What an odd way to phrase that_ , he thought, almost suspiciously. "Are you just saying that because you did the autopsy, Ms. Proserpine?" Alois said.

"Oh, of course. Again, at the time, I thought it was Ennie and a spider."

Apollo nodded absent-mindedly, thinking again. The time of death on the autopsy report - 9:00 PM - was pretty much absolute due to how little time had passed between the murder itself and when it was reported. What _wasn't_ so absolute was when Jackie (and the man in apartment 281) had seen Ennie return home. Both of them had just said _around_ nine o'clock.

But then the problem was: if he had returned _before_ the murder, did that mean that the murder took place while he was sleeping on the couch? Perhaps the alcohol in his system could explain why he wouldn't have woken up during the murder, but then, why would the murderer let him live? To have a fall guy? And if he had returned _after_ the murder, well, that had its own problems, namely that it was hard to believe that anyone could get drunk enough to not notice that their apartment was covered in blood.

"Witness," Apollo pressed on, "you said you saw the defendant while you were putting the trash out. Do you mean you were putting your trash in the dumpster, or…?"

"In the dumpster," Jackie said with a bored nod. "and before you ask, if I had seen a corpse there I would have absolutely called the police."

"Maybe the corpse was already covered by other trash," he suggested.

"That's unlikely," said Alois, "when the homeless man who reported the crime discovered it, Jantje was lying on top of everything else in the dumpster. Therefore she had been thrown in there after Ms. Proserpine had taken out her garbage."

Time to change tracks. "After the crime took place, my client allegedly slept on the couch before leaving for Tracy the next morning," Apollo said.

"How do you know he slept on the couch?" the Judge said.

"No one entered the defendant's bedroom after the morning of the twenty-sixth," Alois said, "we can tell because, as Detective Noir said earlier, the doors at the Grape Water Apartment Complex use electronic locks. All of them, not just the front door - and there's a record of when they open and close."

"So no one opened the bedroom door after the morning of the twenty-sixth," Apollo said.

"No one at all," Alois said, and he presented room 280's door records. "Therefore, he must have slept on his couch last night."

Apollo put where he was going with that on pause as he looked over the door records. "There's something strange here," he said, pointing at the record of when the front door opened and closed, "the front door opened at 8:49 PM, but didn't close until 9:09. Was the door just open for 20 minutes? Witness, did you see that?"

"The door looked closed to me," Jackie said with a shrug.

Alois produced a slightly bent business card bearing the logo of Ennie's bank. "This was found at the crime scene," he said, "from the looks of it, it was placed between the door and the electronic sensors, keeping it technically 'open' until it was removed."

"And… the murderer put it there?" Apollo said.

"Since it was most likely put there at 8:49, we assume Jantje did it," Alois said, " _why_ exactly, we don't know. The defendant must have noticed the card and removed it - or unintentionally dislodged it - on his return from dumping the body."

 _Yeah, or maybe something else happened,_ Apollo thought, but he didn't know what. "As I was saying," he said, "I seem to recall the couch my client allegedly slept on having blood on it. Did the police recover the clothes he was wearing that night, and if so, did they have blood on them?"

Alois was silent for a moment, then said, grimacing slightly - Apollo noticed at that that he was a bit peaky where he hadn't been before, and wondered what was up with that - "No. We couldn't find the clothes he wore the night of the crime. Our best guess is that he loaded them into his suitcase the following morning, and either destroyed them or left them in Tracy."

"His suitcase?" said the Judge, "come to think of it, if he hadn't entered his room…"

"His suitcase was waiting for him by the door, your Honor," Apollo said, then addressed Alois: "Prosecutor von Karma-Gavin, if the suitcase was at the crime scene, then I assume forensics has gone over it?"

"Yes," Alois said, playing a fringe of hair that hung down by his ear and frowning, "strangely enough, there was no blood on it at all, even though there should have been. In addition, while we would have expected trace amounts of blood on the other clothes in the suitcase from coming in contact with the clothes worn for the murder, we found nothing. Perhaps Mr. Ennie had a different way of transporting…?"

"Actually, speaking of blood on clothing, I heard from someone in the forensics department that there was fresh blood on the victim's clothing that didn't belong to either her or Mr. Ennie," Apollo suddenly remembered, and was glad that his daughter was on friendly terms with so many people in the department - meaning they were willing to throw her father a bone once in a while.

"Yes," Alois said, "it wasn't much, though…"

"I'd say it still introduces the possibility of a third party, doesn't it?" Apollo said, crossing his arms.

"Strange," said the Judge, "this all sounds very familiar…"

"Yeah, actually," Apollo said, suddenly off-put, "I think I've read this case file before."

"What?" said Alois.

"Oh, I know what you're talking about," Jackie said, a strange light in her eyes, "the one that got away."

* * *

 _November 17 (2057), 3:00 PM, People Park_

"There is no one here," Jana said in surprise.

Future Jana shrugged. "This park was hardly ever popular, not even in your time." She had a point there. "We will not be disturbed here, and are free to discuss our plan of action." She sat down on an old bench, crossing one long leg gracefully over the other, and gestured for Jana to sit next to her.

Jana did so, pulling out her notebook. "First," she said, "I have a question about what you said last time we met."

"Go ahead," future Jana said with an imperious wave of her hand.

"You said the timing was 'too convenient,' what did you mean by that?"

"It has been seven years since the case… just over, in fact," future Jana said, "After seven years with no leads, new evidence, or further arrests, a case gets transferred to the cold case unit. After that, it… usually does not get solved. I am sure the murderer felt threatened by the fact that they were so close to going cold case, yet there was still a living witness aside from Ked Napp, who is even now still committed to LA Central's psychiatric ward."

"I see…" said Jana, "but the massacre happened in July, and it is November." As if to emphasize this, she rubbed the bare skin of her arms. It was chilly and she'd forgotten a coat.

"Miguel reopened the investigation last June," future Jana said, "that delayed it by a few months. The transfer over to the cold case unit was - _is_ supposed to happen next week." She set her jaw. "We must drag it out in the open."

"Well, I have started work on deciphering Alois' dying message," Jana said seriously, "and I think I have part of it." She showed future Jana the page, which had written on it:

MF-A ご んりしいるくざ

ざくるいしりんご

 _ZAKURUISHI RINGO_

 _GARNET APPLE ?_

And she explained how she got there.

"That's clever of him," future Jana said, closing her eyes to think. "Although it seems we are not done solving it."

Jana frowned. "To be honest, he should have assumed the killer, if they returned, would erase his message, no matter if it was nonsense or not."

"Perhaps he just wanted to make sure we would know that it was really him who left the message," future Jana said, "after all, if you were a murderer, would you not simply write someone else's name as the victim's fake dying message?"

"That is true," Jana said, "although I suppose only your Alois would know for sure."

"I wonder what he would say if he were here right now," future Jana said, and Jana could just hear the misery in her voice.

"Probably some quip in German," Jana said, attempting to lighten the mood.

Future Jana's eyes shot open. "Wait!" she exclaimed, "that is it!"

"What?" Jana said, just as future Jana turned her around and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"German!" she said, shaking her, "we did not follow through the last step in Alois' riddle! We must translate 'garnet apple' into _German!_ "

"Garnet apple, Granat Apfel… Granatapfel!" Jana said, her eyes widening. "…he was trying to tell us… _pomegranate?_ " What did _that_ mean?

"Pomegranate…" future Jana said, looking like she was turning something over in her mind, which she certainly was. "I think perhaps the police were right about one thing."

"What?"

"'MF-A' did stand for Miguel Fey-Armando," future Jana said, "but not to implicate him - rather, to point us in his direction. To point us towards a witness from the case that was interrupted by his arrest."

"And the word 'pomegranate' somehow tells us who this witness is?"

"Of course," future Jana said firmly, standing up, "the pomegranate was the fruit eaten by Hades' wife - Persephone. And the Roman version of Persephone is…"

"…Proserpine?"

* * *

 _April 30 (2054), 11:00 AM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9_

"The hostage massacre case," Jackie said, "four years ago. I remember that - I remember it very well, in fact."

"Surely this case isn't related," Apollo started.

Alois cut him off. "Actually, a piece of evidence related to that case was found on the victim's person. I don't actually know much about the hostage massacre myself, so by all means, witness, enlighten us."

Jackie smiled at Alois, and even from across the courtroom Apollo could see his involuntary flinch as she did that, and his subsequent confused expression of _Why did I do that?_

"There isn't too much to say about it," Jackie said, although the odd gleam in her eyes didn't go away, "except that it had a few bare similarities to my favorite serial killer, H. H. Holmes."

 _Favorite serial killer?_ Apollo thought, his hair spikes drooping. Then again, considering what kind of person Dr. Kamosinko was…

"The mass murderer that's come to be known as 'L. A. Holmes' got their start as a serial kidnapper," Jackie explained, "for ten years they targeted pubescent males, mostly runaways, some from Los Angeles and some from as far away as Cheyenne. They would keep them hostage in the converted hotel where they lived - rather like H. H. Holmes. Also like H. H. Holmes, they had 27 victims-"

"26," the Judge corrected, "L. A. Holmes had 26 victims. 25 were killed, and one survived."

Jackie was silent. She was glaring at the Judge with such ferocity that Apollo almost felt like he should take a step back.

"No, your Honor," came a faint voice from the prosecution stand. Apollo glanced back at Alois - and saw that he was trembling, eyes wide and fixed on Jackie, and leaning heavily on his desk. Despite the distance between them, Apollo could see him struggling to breathe. "Th-that hostage massacre had… es hatte… it had- es hatte zwei Überlebenden. _Two_ survivors… ich erinnere mich jetzt."

He collapsed.

* * *

 **Sith told me that the twist of Jackie Proserpine being L. A. Holmes was obvious. Was it really? He was tipped off by the fact that she has a favorite serial killer. But, it's common for people who go into forensics/law enforcement to get there by being interested in true crime!**

 **Also. "Jackie" is referential to Jack the Ripper, Proserpine was after my ex-girlfriend. If it seems cruel or petty to name a crazy serial kidnapper/mass murderer after my ex, then you don't know my ex.**

 **Translations: besides the ones translated in-text:  
** **ich erinnere mich jetzt. (DE) I remember now.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Check the Janaverse tag on my tumblr (there's a link on our profile) for an alternate version of a scene from this chapter!**

* * *

 _October 9 (2048), 3:00 PM, Themis Legal Academy_

"Maybe a Jetstream Sam joke would have been more appropriate," Ares mumbled to himself.

"Yes, sir," Misty E said, "since he's half-Brazilian, isn't he?"

Watson seethed. "Now is _not_ the time for stupid jokes about classic games… Ares, what are we doing here?"

"Looking for blackmail on Miguel, like you 'requested'," Ares said, "look, here he comes now."

Yes, here came seventeen-year-old Miguel, a senior in the prosecutor's course, walking through the courtyard by the side of a fifteen-year-old Watson Justice, a sophomore in the defense attorney's course who wore a slightly-too-big labcoat over her school uniform.

"No," the time-traveling Watson hissed, "I mean, what are we doing _here?_ If Miguel had done something with me in high school that warranted blackmailing, don't you think I would have brought that up _first?_ "

Ares was rolling his eyes under his sunglasses. "I thought maybe you wouldn't bring it up on your own because _you_ didn't want to say-"

"You're just trying to get blackmail on _me_ now!" Watson exclaimed. Over in the courtyard, her younger self glanced over at the bushes where the three of them were concealed.

"Did you hear something?" she said.

"No," Miguel said, taking a swig out of his thermos of coffee.

Past Watson turned back to him. "That stuff stunts your growth, you know," she said, "that's why you're so short."

"I'm not short!" Miguel said defensively, "also, Maria drinks as much as I do and _she's_ taller than I am!"

"…did you just _admit_ you're short…?" past Watson said.

"-already have enough dirt on you I could go into business as a gravedigger," Ares was grumbling.

Present Watson became aware of someone breathing down the back of her neck. She turned around, "Eek!" and almost fell out of her bush.

"You three have balls, don't you?" Macario Armando said.

"M-Macario!" Misty E gasped. Ares just stared from the comfort of his own bush.

"I warned you once. You won't get a second chance," Macario said.

"What are you even doing here?" Ares ventured to ask.

Macario just glared at him, then shifted his glare to Watson, who was still lying on the ground with a root uncomfortably jabbing into her back. "I'm not about to let you take Miguel Fey-Armando out of the picture," he said, "he's my biggest ally in the alpha timeline."

"Why did you come to the alpha timeline?" Watson squeaked, "why not just stay in the lambda timeline?" She cracked a weak smile. "Wanted to be a part of the true path of the universe…?"

Macario spit on the ground next to her, and she flinched. Ares raised an eyebrow impassively.

"I don't give a damn which timeline is 'the truth path of the universe'," Macario said harshly, although he was still keeping his voice low enough not to attract the attention of the Themis students, "the lambda timeline is where I grew up, and where everyone I've ever loved was. _That's_ the truth, as far as I'm concerned. That's _my_ truth. You can take _your_ truth and stick it."

"Then why bother with our timeline at all?" Ares said.

"Ask Phoenix Wright's kid," Macario grunted. Misty E just shook her head - she either didn't know why he'd leave the lambda timeline, or was unwilling to say.

"We should go, sir," she said quietly.

"I agree," Ares said, pulling out the time device.

"Hey, wait-" Watson started, but Misty E was stronger than her and had little difficulty shoving her through the door.

Sophomore Watson glanced at the bushes again. For a second there, she thought she'd seen a flash of orange and blue light.

"Something wrong?" Miguel said.

"No, nothing…"

* * *

 _April 30 (2054), 12:30 PM, Hickfield Clinic_

Edgeworth was waiting in the hallway, just outside the door to Alois' room, when Jana ran up, sliding the last few feet, then bending over with her hands on knees, panting. "H-How… how is he…? I heard… he… fainted in court…"

"He had a panic attack," Edgeworth explained, "a severe one. He started hyperventilating and…"

"I… I see…" Jana said, getting ahold of herself, and standing up straight. "But why…?"

"Some comments a witness made in court set him off," Edgeworth said, adjusting his glasses, "somehow they managed to get on the subject of the L. A. Holmes massacre, and he suddenly remembered his… involvement in it. I've called your parents already," he added, "so they know what's going on."

"Will they be returning early?"

"Not unless things get worse. As upsetting as this is, Jana, I should remind you that he _is_ fine now, physically at least. He's still resting, so the psychological repercussions of this have yet to be seen."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Kristoph said, walking up behind Jana, "he may not look like much, but he is a tough one."

"As I said, it remains to be seen," Edgeworth said, disregarding Kristoph.

Jana glanced over her shoulder. "Uncle Kristoph, where is Maria? She drove us here…"

There was the sound of footsteps at the end of the hall, one set moving much faster than the other. Miguel ran in, also sliding the last few feet on the slick hospital floor, and Maria followed behind at a more reasonable pace.

"Mr. Edgeworth," Miguel gasped, "let me take over the Ennie case."

Edgeworth raised his eyebrows impassively. "What about the Soergei case?"

"That can wait! It's not ready to go to trial anyway - and you'll need a new prosecutor on the Ennie case since my kitten is down - and I-I think it's related to the L. A. Holmes case."

"If it really is related," Edgeworth said, "then of course you should be the one heading up this case. But, is it?"

"Miguel was just talking to forensics when he heard about Alois," Maria interjected, "apparently, the blood found on the clothing of the victim in the Ennie case matched the unknown blood from the case four years ago."

"The blood that belonged to the culprit…" Edgeworth said.

"That, and the fact that she had that license plate number on her," Miguel said, and Jana frowned, recalling her conversation with Detective Grantaire two days ago, "means that - the person behind the mass murder _had_ to have been involved somehow."

"Are you proposing that Lars Ennie is the mass murderer from four years ago?" Edgeworth said.

Miguel shook his head. "I already know that the blood didn't match him."

"Then are you proposing that Lars Ennie is not the real killer in this case?"

"…that could be a possibility, but there's lots of evidence, right?" Miguel kept shaking his head. "Even if Lars Ennie killed her, I believe he may have killed her _because_ she was - investigating the massacre."

"Maybe Ennie is a hitman and you just didn't know it," Maria said dryly.

"It could happen!"

Edgeworth glanced at the closed door behind him, then nodded. "Alright, Fey," he said, "you can take over the prosecution of this case. I expect you to get to the bottom of this."

Miguel saluted, then ran back off down the hallway.

"I need to go get a drink from the water fountain," Jana said quickly, then ran off after him. Maria and Edgeworth exchanged glances.

"…wait, where did Gavin go?"

Meanwhile in the stairwell, Jana had caught up with Miguel. "You need something, filly?" Miguel said, barely slowing his step, "I need to go talk to Detective Noir like, an hour ago. This case _ends_ tomorrow."

"Actually," Jana said, "it ends fourteen years ago."

Miguel stopped. "…what?"

"My future self and I," Jana said, a rare look on her face, "tonight we are going back in time to fix all of this before it ever even happens. No one will die, and Alois will not be traumatized…"

"Woah, filly," Miguel said, blinking, "are you even sure that'll _work?_ "

"We have to try, do we not?" Jana said.

"Sounds dangerous."

"We have to try," Jana repeated.

Miguel stared at her. Arguing, he knew, was pointless. She was _going_ to do this, no matter what he said or did. "You really think it's going to work, filly?"

Jana made an uncertain, palms-out gesture with her hands. "I… it may. It may not. And it could possibly be dangerous… I do not know. My older self did not tell me her specific plans, except that we would make sure that the mass murder never happened at all."

Miguel just looked at her. Eventually, he placed his hands on her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes. "Filly," he said, his voice very clear, "be. careful. I know I can't convince you to just not do this, but," his grip on her shoulders tightened, and he shook her a little, "come back _alive_ , do you hear me, filly? And unharmed. Your brother's already in a tight enough spot as it is - yeah, and maybe you can completely undo it. Undo this whole case. But be _careful_. Your parents already almost lost one child once."

"I understand," Jana said, her jaw working. "I will be careful."

"I have to go now," Miguel said, taking his hands off her. "Just in case you don't manage to undo this whole mess, I have a case to solve." He started walking down the stairs again. Jana stayed put. "See you on the other side, filly."

* * *

 _November 17 (2057), 6:45 PM, Wright Anything Agency_

"Maya Valerie," Jana said, leaning in front of her desk, hands pressed flat against its surface. She studied the wood, and thought about the last four years. She'd been working here, at WAA, for the past four years, and for three years before that she studied under her uncle, who also worked here. She'd gotten her own desk a few months before her debut.

 _Seven years_ , she thought with a trace of irony.

"What is it, Jana?" Maya Valerie Wright, her best friend, said from behind her. Sounded like she was reshelving some of those ancient law books she'd taken out to study.

"Do you remember… when you first enrolled in Themis Academy?" Jana said, still looking at her desk. "One of your teachers recognized you, and she gave you an old piece of fabric to give back to your step-father."

Maya Valerie laughed. "Of course," she said, "it was Daddy's cravat. She'd stolen it from him at a convention back in '28. I can't believe someone would keep something like that for 27 years!"

Jana turned around, looked at Maya Valerie. She looked more and more like her dead mother every day, or at least more and more like her dead aunt, since she'd kept up that purposefully annoying habit of dying her hair red. "What brought this on, Jana?" she said, tilting her head. A butterfly floated serenely by.

"…nothing," Jana said. "Maya Valerie, when you graduate, do you… still want to re-form Gavin Law Offices with me?"

"Of course!" said Maya Valerie brightly, "Wright Anything Agency is getting too crowded anyway. We need to strike out on our own."

Jana nodded.

"…so what is this about?" Maya Valerie said, then added in a softer tone, "are you scared, because of what happened to Alois?"

Jana, very slowly, nodded again, and then she abruptly pulled Maya Valerie into a hug.

"Jana…?"

"Everything will be fine," Jana whispered, mostly to herself, "everything will work out. It will."

* * *

 _October 4 (2040), 7:45 AM, Cheyenne, Wyoming_

"Where are we?" said Jana, looking around. This city they were in was nothing like Los Angeles, or indeed any city in California. It was very flat, and very cold and the sky was gray. Both Janas' breaths fogged in the air in front of their faces.

"The time and place of Jackie Proserpine's first kidnapping," future Jana said, "the crime that would eventually escalate into a mass murder."

A newspaper lying on the street they were walking down caught Jana's eye. "We are very far from home."

"Jackie Proserpine only primarily operated on the west coast. She sometimes found victims more inland." They approached the mouth of an alley, and future Jana slowed, Jana following suit. "Ked Napp is about to be abducted on his way to school."

At the other end of the alley, a skinny black-haired woman - not much older than the older Jana - was watching the perpendicular street and breathing hard.

 _This must be her_ , Jana thought. She supposed that her older self had been able to track her here using their newfound knowledge of her identity. "What do we do? What is the plan?" Jana whispered.

Future Jana held her hand in a wait-a-minute gesture. "We will have her arrested for attempted kidnapping," she murmured, "so first, she needs to attempt the kidnapping."

"H-Hey, kid," Proserpine called, "you're from around here, right?"

The twelve-year-old boy with the backpack, who had just walked into view of the alley, nodded warily.

"Do you know how to get to the gas station?"

The kid pointed down the road some. "It's over there."

"Over where?" Proserpine said.

"Over _there_ ," the boy repeated. "See where the intersection is? Make a right, and then make a left, and-"

"Oh," Proserpine groaned, "I have no sense of direction. Can you show me where it is? It can't be too far out of your way…"

The kid raised his eyebrow at her, shrugged, said, "Come on," and started walking down the street. Proserpine quickly followed.

"Here we go," future Jana said, striding forward. Jana trailed after. "I will see if I can provoke her into doing something more obvious - once she does that, you run for the police."

"If it does not work?" Jana said.

"Then you will not like the backup plan," future Jana said flatly. She fell into step beside Proserpine, who looked at her with alarm, while Jana lingered behind. "You are a long way from your hotel, are you not?"

"Who's this lady?" the boy said.

"Er…" Proserpine glared at Jana with a panicked heat.

"I will not let you kidnap this child, Jackie Proserpine," future Jana said calmly.

Ked barely got out a "What-?" before Proserpine's hand was clamped over his mouth, and her other arm was wrapped around him, wedged under his armpits, and lifting him off his feet. She bolted, carrying Ked off with her. Jana took that as her cue to run down the street in the opposite direction, where she hoped she'd find a police station - behind her, she heard the crack of a whip and a loud _thud_ as, presumably, future Jana whipped Proserpine's feet out from under her. Ked's screams and Proserpine's angry shouts faded into the distance…

* * *

 _April 30 (2054), 11:35 PM, Gavin estate, Jana's room_

Jana stepped out of the time door with a feeling of immense satisfaction. Her bet that she was running in the vague direction of a police station had been on the mark, and she had brought a pair of cops to where future Jana was waiting for them, pinning Proserpine to the ground with her arm wrenched behind her back, and a crying Ked. She explained the situation, Ked was more than willing to talk about what had just happened, and one of the cops slapped some cuffs on Proserpine. Jana asked the other one if, since this was only an _attempted_ kidnapping and therefore her sentence would be relatively light - if she was convicted at all - was there not a chance of her trying again in the future? The cop had assured her that the police would keep a close eye on her from now on, even if she crossed state lines. And once Proserpine was loaded into the back of a police car, future Jana had sent present Jana back to her own time before returning to her present, herself.

And in this present, somehow, Jana could already tell the atmosphere had changed.

But… Jana realized, as her eyes readjusted to the dark of her room, it wasn't just the atmosphere that had changed. For one thing, she was certain she had left the lamp on when she'd stepped through the time door. And for another thing, her room was… messier than when she had left. Her normally neat desk had piles of folded clothes, which Jana usually put in her dresser immediately, on it. There were more than a few dirty articles of clothing scattered on her floor.

And, Jana realized, there was someone in her bed.

Someone… that looked a little like her.

Wordlessly, Jana clicked on the lamp. A person who was Jana's mirror image, except flipped, stirred, and opened her eyes.

They stared at each other.

Jana put her finger to her lips. The other one kept staring.

" _What_ ," the other Jana finally hissed.

"What is going on here?" Jana said.

The other Jana sat up, glaring at herself. "What do you mean, what is going on here?" she said. "Who are you? Am I dreaming?"

Jana blinked. "You must be the alternate version of me," she said, "what timeline is this?"

"Timeline? What are you talking about?"

Jana glanced at the closed door of the bedroom. Future Jana must have accidentally sent her to a different timeline somehow - apparently one where Jana and Alois had never gotten involved in time travel. "Where is Alois?" Jana said, now that he was on her mind, "in his room?"

" _Alois?_ He is dead."

Jana's head whipped back to goggle at her other self. She was the one hissing " _What?!_ " this time.

"He is dead," the other Jana said again, her glare intensifying murderously. "That _bastard_ Clay Justice _killed_ him."

It didn't even register with Jana that her other self was using much coarser language that she had ever used herself. "What do you mean, Clay Justice killed him?"

"It was a double murder," the other Jana said, her voice getting a little choked, "he and Maria Fey-Armando were both killed last December."

Jana felt like the wind had been knocked out her. She took a step back, and slowly raised her hands to her ears. "No," she said out loud. "No, that cannot…" Murdered last December? Suddenly, Ares' words at the end of that trial came back to her:

 _"Once she did actually pass out, I noticed the defendant. He actually was pretty pissed off, he probably wanted to attack me… but he fainted almost as soon as I looked at him. It was then that I realized that he was Alois von Karma-Gavin, so I realized that he wouldn't actually remember anything that happened, so I let him live. Oh," he added, glancing behind him at Armando, "I did actually intend to kill Maria. It's a wonder she survived. I honestly thought the she was dead when I left…"_

She hadn't realized that. She hadn't realized that Alois would have been murdered if it hadn't been for his phobia of blood.

She hadn't realized that Jackie Proserpine had unintentionally saved his life, three years after she tried to take it.

Future Jana suddenly appeared, her face panic-stricken, although it quickly smoothed out into her usual vaguely arrogant impassiveness when she saw the two younger Janas.

"What the hell?" the Jana in the bed said, rubbing one eye with the heel of her hand.

"My apologies," future Jana said, "the user input to my time travel device is streamlined. It does not show what timeline you are in unless you specifically check, and always sends you to your destination within your own timeline unless you specifically change it."

She showed Jana the screen on it. It did look like a sleeker version of the old MASON system, although for the moment the screen just had one thing on it.

LN α δ

"We arrived in the alpha timeline, but in the course of our interfering, we changed it to the delta timeline," future Jana explained, "and as such, delta was the one we left from. I also ended up in the delta timeline upon my return home." She glanced at delta-Jana behind her, who was staring at her doppelgänger and older, alternate self in confusion. She probably still thought she was dreaming.

Jana knew she wouldn't remember this meeting at all, and she felt sorry for her anyway. She didn't want to imagine the pain she was going through, the pain of having lost her older brother and one of her friends, too…

"So the alpha timeline remains unchanged," Jana said, looking back at her older self.

"For now," future Jana said. "I think I know a way to make sure the changes take in _our_ timeline, though."

"But-" Jana started, now unsure if she _wanted_ to change the past. Her older self cut her off, grabbing her wrist.

"Come," she said, and they left the delta timeline, and the sad other Jana, behind.

* * *

 **LAL brick joke! *finger guns* Sorry, I had to.**

 **Also, I copy/pasted (and slightly edited, because my proofreading has always sucked) that flashback line from Sleeping Turnabout.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I think this is the darkest chapter. Have fun.**

* * *

 _July 8 (2050), 1:00 PM, Hiza Street_

"We should not be doing this," Jana said, face pale, "we should not be interfering with the past. It is a mistake. It is not our place to do-"

"Shh," said the older Jana, her eyes not leaving the gray sedan with the 6YJL401 license plate.

"Alois will _die_ in the future if this does not happen. Is this not what you came to past to prevent?"

Future Jana spared her a glance. "There are 25 people who will also die if we do not act."

"They survived in the delta timeline. Is that not enough?"

"The delta timeline is not the true timeline. This is."

"Alois will die," Jana repeated.

They were quiet enough for a moment that they could faintly hear Franziska's high, carrying voice: "There is a fast food restaurant on the other side of that building over there. You two go buy yourself some lunch, then come back here."

"It is either Alois or those 25 people," future Jana said, looking down at Jana. Her face was very serious, and her eyes inscrutable. "Make your choice."

"I…"

"Well?"

Jana glanced at the alleyway. She was running out of time. The gray sedan was starting to inch forward.

"What is it going to be?"

Jana put her foot down. "Alois," she said, "I cannot lose him."

Future Jana nodded, then put her arm in front of the younger Jana as the gray sedan rolled forward, blocking the exit to the alley. They could hear Alois on the other side of it - "Excuse me, what- ah-!" and despite Jana's declaration that the kidnapping and hostage massacre _had to happen_ , it was still a good thing that her older self was holding her back, because everything in her was screaming at her to run at that car and break the window and _stop this_ , here and now.

The car door slammed, the engine revved, and it sped down the street. Jana saw the license plate that had always, always been burned into her memory, and she realized that Detective Grantaire was right. There was an eleven-year-old girl, lying in the middle of the alley, who had never seen that plate.

Jana ducked out from under her future self's arm and ran into the alley, pulling her eleven-year-old self to her feet. The thought crossed her mind of how strange it was too see her like this, stranger even that meeting her delta timeline self - because this was _her_ , four years ago, when she wore a long ruffled skirt and her hair in gigantic pigtails and she hadn't even had a riding crop yet.

"W-Who-?" the child Jana started.

"6YJL401," Jana said clearly and quickly, "remember that number: 6YJL401. It is the license plate on that car. Tell them you saw it. Do you remember it?"

"6YJL401," past Jana said faintly.

Jana nodded once, then, realizing that her young self was still in too much shock to do it herself, cupped her hands to her mouth and screamed, loudly. That, she remembered, summoned her mother in less than half a minute, and then she told her what she saw, and the plate number, and the police had found out where Alois may have been taken to, which really _was_ where he had been taken to.

Jana bolted out of the alley, meeting future Jana just around a corner.

"Interesting," future Jana said, "I suppose I- we must have convinced ourselves that we had indeed seen the plate, since we forgot about our encounter with you once you returned to your own time."

Jana half-laughed, even though it wasn't really funny. "I cannot believe it… the one memory that haunted me for so long, and it was made up…" Inexplicably, she noticed the sunlight shining on the attorney's badge habitually pinned to her sleeveless jacket, and laughed again. "I remember now," she said, "after this incident, that was when I decided I wanted to become a defense attorney instead of a prosecutor."

"You made a very deep impression on yourself," future Jana chuckled, then checked her time device, her brow furrowing. "We are approaching a point of flux in time," she said, her voice hard once again, "timelines are about to split. Come, back to the hotel."

They both ran to the Hollywood corner where the former hotel stood, weaving in and out of foot traffic and getting plenty of odd looks. Police vehicles with their sirens on passed them as they were starting to get close, and they quickened their pace. Jana felt like her lungs were going to burst.

They drew near to the hotel, and already there was a barricade of cop cars and hostage negotiator vans blocking the the street. The front door was closed, and there was a dead man bleeding all over the sidewalk just in front of it.

Jana bent over, gasping for breath. Future Jana stretched her whip between her hands, grinding her teeth. "How am I supposed to get in now?"

"Why do you… why do you need to get in?" Jana panted.

"…because I understand now," future Jana said, still pulling on her whip, "that blood, and why Alois was unharmed. I know now. I know what I need to do. And I think… I always did."

"What…?" Jana didn't quite get it.

"But how do I get in…?"

Jana swallowed hard. "I remember hearing my parents mentioning an underground tunnel used for drugrunning that connected to the hotel. There must be an entrance to it nearby," she said, then pointed at alleyway two buildings down from the hotel. "Try over there."

Future Jana's hands relaxed, and after a second of standing perfectly still, staring at Proserpine's house - for some reason, Jana thought _I really do grow up to look just like Mama_ \- she turned to Jana. "Thank you," she said.

"What?"

She handed her the time travel device. "I will not need this anymore," she said, "the timeline only corrects itself when and _if_ the time-travelers leave."

"You- you are staying in the past?"

"You will not see me again. Take care of Alois," she added in a softer voice, then she turned and jogged away towards the alley Jana had pointed out, leaving Jana standing there with the time travel device in both hands. She looked down at it.

HEAD HOME?, it said.

* * *

 _July 8, 1:20 PM, The murder house_

Alois was locked in room with a gray-haired boy a little shorter than him. The boy had been staring at him, just staring, for as long as he'd been here. Probably only about fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

He glanced at the door before whispering, "How do we get out of here?"

"We don't," said the boy.

Alois stared back at him. "Was?"

The boy didn't say anything. Alois turned away, and listened carefully, straining his ears for anything outside the blacked-out windows. He'd heard sirens about five minutes ago, but they'd stopped. There was some sort of commotion outside, he thought, but he couldn't tell what it was.

"Do you think someone will come rescue us?" he asked the boy.

The boy shook his head. "We're stuck here forever," he said.

Alois blanched, and hugged his knees a little tighter to his chest. "But I want to go home," he said plaintively, and he knew it was a childish statement, unfitting in the mouth of a thirteen-year-old. But this wasn't really the situation to care about that…

The boy cocked his head at him, still staring unblinkingly. "It isn't so bad here," he said, " _she_ takes care of us. She feeds us and everyday she lets us play in the gym, and sometimes lets us talk to the others." He paused. "Sometimes we hear her yelling downstairs, but then she comes and sees any of her children and she calms down. She likes us. We're hers."

"We are not," Alois snapped, "we're free people, just like anyone else. Und she's not our Mutter. She's a kidnapper!"

The boy finally looked away from him, staring at the blacked-out window. "My Ma let me wander around the streets downtown, and wasn't paying enough attention to me. Someone really bad could have gotten to me-"

"Someone really bad _did_ get to you," Alois said, "you're locked up here, aren't you!"

The boy just kept staring at the window. Alois had almost given up on a reply when he murmured, "I want to see my Ma again. I want to take a road trip with her and see my babci and dziadek again…"

"You can do that," Alois said, seizing him by the shoulders, which startled him out of his reverie, "und I want to see my Mama and Papa and kleine Schwester again. We just have to figure out how to get out of here!"

Just then, the door opened. It was the same woman who had dragged Alois into her car, only now there was blood splashed down her front and a panicked rage smoldering in her eyes. She was carrying a large butcher knife that had clearly just been wiped of blood, which she was methodically sharpening with her other hand.

"Miss," said the gray-haired boy in a faint voice, "is that your blood? Are you hurt?" Meanwhile, Alois had jumped up and had bolted for the window, pounding on it with his fists.

"Hilfe!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, and in the blurry reflection of the window he saw the woman pick up the boy by the collar of his shirt and plunge the knife deep into this stomach. He screamed, and Alois had never heard such a terrible sound in his life, and he was screaming too.

He turned around, back pressed against the window, and watched in horror as the woman dropped the boy to his feet, where he stood erect if only by inertia, and drew her knife across his throat in one quick gesture that sprayed the room in blood - the boy twisted as he fell, and that foul, hot, copper-smelling wetness got on Alois as well.

He fell to his knees, spitting out blood that had splashed in his mouth, and looked up again to see the woman approach, polishing her blade on the hem of her skirt. "Ach Gotter," Alois wheezed, then he slumped over, having fainted from the sheer terror of it.

Proserpine wasn't about to be stopped by that. She gripped his hair with one hand, pulled him up to expose his neck, and-

Something hit her hard from behind. She jerked forward to the ground, and whoever had tackled her was now sitting on top of her, pinning her down, and with one fist in her hair smashing her face against the floor again and again, over and over and over. Proserpine felt her nose break, and the carpet beneath her was now spotted red from something other than the dead boy with the gray hair.

Jana could hear Proserpine struggling to breathe.

 _I could do it_ , she thought, _I could just kill her._

She either hesitated or savored the moment - even she didn't know which - with Proserpine's head pulled roughly back in preparation for what might be the killing blow.

Proserpine twisted and stared sideways at her assailant through eyes already starting to swell shut. Blood ran down her face, and she spoke with difficulty.

"I see you feel the same anger I do."

Jana clenched her jaw, her hand tightening in Proserpine's hair.

"Who are you?" Proserpine mumbled.

"I-" Jana said, "I am Ja- Jantje," she said, all at once throwing her past away, "and I will not let you hurt anyone else."

Proserpine smiled at her, and it looked like Jana - _Jantje_ \- had knocked a few teeth loose. "It was just the new boy and Ked who were left," she said, and started laughing, coughing up blood, then her eyes rolled up.

Jantje thought for a second she had died, then realized she was still breathing and had merely passed out. She dropped her, stood up, and stared at Alois.

She knew if she didn't do something about it Proserpine would wake up again and escape before the police finally kicked down the door, and she knew if she suffered her to live it'd only bring pain and grief down the road, just as it had done to her seven years in the future - a future that even now still existed, and she just had to trust the fifteen-year-old Jana to prevent somehow, if only she could get ahold of her message to her.

But she couldn't bring herself to kill an incapacitated woman. That would be murder.

That would make her no better than her.

She gathered the unconscious Alois in her arms - although tall, he was rather thin, and even when their age gap wasn't reversed and more than doubled she could always pick him up - and realized that she couldn't take him with her. She was just acting out a time loop, one that she already knew the events of… any deviation would send this whole timeline spinning into an alternate, and although she came here with the goal of turning _her_ present into nothing more than a false copy, she had to make sure that this - with Alois surviving, if no one else but Jackie Proserpine and a man who would languish in a psych ward for the rest of his life - stayed the alpha timeline, even if it meant sacrificing her future and surrendering to 'fate'.

She carried him out the room and placed him in a hall closet. She closed the door. This had already happened, after all.

In that moment, Jantje felt the crushing, helpless, fatalistic _despair_ of knowing you had no free will, and she thought about Watson Justice.

* * *

 _May 1 (2054), 12:35 AM, Kaminogi Housing Complex, Apartment no. 8_

Miguel had already been asleep and was pretty much still asleep when he answered the door. As a result he didn't notice that he was still shirtless until he saw Jana standing on his doorstep.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, then Miguel stepped back, gesturing for her to come in.

"What happened?" he said flatly, shrugging on a shirt but not bothering to button it up.

"I…" Jana mumbled, looking at the floor.

She didn't continue on her own, so Miguel sat her down at his kitchen table and got both of them a cup of coffee. The ghost of a smile touched his face as he realized this was almost the same thing as had happened on Valentine's Day, when he'd gotten dragged into all this, too. No, that wasn't true… he'd been involved ever since he discovered them missing that evening in January. Maybe even before that, and he just hadn't known yet. Maybe this was inevitable, inexorable.

"How did you get here?" Miguel said, attempting to ease into the conversation.

"I walked," Jana said.

Miguel raised his eyebrows. "Filly, my apartment is six minutes away from your house _by car_. That's, what, three miles? At midnight, by yourself?" He put down his coffee cup. "Are you _insane?_ "

Jana just stared at her coffee.

"Alright," Miguel said, leaning back in his chair and putting one hand to the side of his face, "alright. Tell me what happened with you and Jantje."

"Jantje?"

"Your older self."

Jana gave him an odd look - probably because, he realized, he'd slipped up and used the name Jantje when Jana wouldn't know it, but said, "We stopped the hostage massacre, but it only lead to an alternate timeline where Alois and Maria were murdered by Ares last December."

Miguel's jaw worked. "Ah," he said.

"So… we went back and…" she looked at her coffee again, frenetically running her finger in circles around its rim, "…realized that the hostage massacre had to happen if we wanted Alois to survive that. He would have died if he did not have a phobia of blood."

"So," Miguel said, a sour taste in his mouth, "you chose not to act."

"Y… Yes. I chose not to act."

Miguel shrugged, knowing full well Jana could probably see right through his forced nonchalance. "Well, filly, even if you had acted, it would have just created another alternate timeline, right? It wouldn't have affected us here. Don't feel guilty about-"

"We did affect the timeline," Jana said, "do you remember how Alois was found in the closet, unharmed? And you could never figure out why that had happened?"

"…" Miguel took a sip of his coffee. "It was strange," he said at length, "because he had blood on him. It wasn't just a case of him hiding in the closet _before_ anything happened, and managing to stay hidden. It was almost as if he had been… intentionally spared… or saved."

"I think the one who saved him was my future self," Jana said.

"So you did interfere."

"Yes."

"And it affected our present."

"Yes. Rather like your father's death penalty."

"…"

"…"

Miguel slammed the bottom of his coffee cup on the table, standing up abruptly. "You changed the course of history," he said sharply, "and you _chose_ to let those 25 kids die?!"

Jana stood up too, bending her riding crop almost in half. "It was either them or Alois and Maria!"

"You _sacrificed twenty-five children_ for _just two people?!_ "

"It was my _brother_ , and your sister!" Jana said, her voice hot but her eyes swimming with tears. "I am not proud of what I did, but I do not regret it. I know it was not the right thing to do, but I would not - I _could_ _not_ do otherwise!"

Miguel took a deep breath, almost shaking in appalled fury, then… deflated, sitting down in his chair once more. He half-raised his coffee mug to his lips then put it down, and let out a dry laugh. Jana stared at him in confusion.

"You're right," he said, "it sure as hell _wasn't_ the right thing to do. But…" and he laughed again, "I would have done the exact same thing, if I were in your shoes."

"You…?" Jana said, her shoulders un-tensing.

"Yeah," Miguel said, "yeah, I would, filly." He took a deep drink out of his coffee cup. "…may God have mercy on our souls."

* * *

 _May 1, 9:55 AM, District Court, Defendant's Lobby no. 9_

That morning at WAA had been a rather interesting one. Mainly because Kristoph and Jana had showed up for work as usual, despite Wright's insistence that Jana, at least, really didn't have to be there since her brother was still in the hospital. (Something about a psychotic break.) Then Jana and Kristoph had gotten into an argument about how the previous night, Jana had apparently snuck out of the house, and had returned home riding on the back of Miguel Fey-Armando's motorcycle at around one in the morning.

Apollo hadn't even known that Armando's son owned a motorcycle.

Anyway, as far as Apollo was concerned, that little piece of family drama was the entire reason why he was _almost_ late to court. Technically, as long as he got here before ten, he was good.

It wasn't like Ennie had much to say to him before the trial, anyway.

"I really didn't kill her," Ennie said again, "I really didn't. I didn't even know her. I don't know how she got into my apartment."

"I know," Apollo said, then added, "I investigated a bit more myself yesterday, Mr. Ennie. I think I'm starting to get an idea of what happened."

"Really?" said Ennie.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Apollo said, crossing his arms confidently. "I'm not about to let an innocent man go to jail. Now… whoever the new prosecutor is had better prepare themselves, because here comes Justice!"

* * *

 **Translations:  
** **Was? (DE) What?  
** **Mutter. (DE) mother.  
** **babci (PL) grandmother** _ **note: this is specifically used by Polish-Americans, not so much actual Polacks in Poland  
**_ **dziadek (PL) grandfather  
** **Hilfe! (DE) Help!  
** **Ach Gotter (DE) Oh gods**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Only one more chapter in this fic, and I still haven't quite started on Tennessee Turnabout... orz**

* * *

 _May 1, 10:00 AM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9_

"Court is now once again in session for the trial of Lars Ennie," said the Judge, "before we begin: Mr. Fey, I have to ask… how is Alois?"

"Still in the hospital," Miguel said. He looked completely unconcerned, although it plainly out of a deep conviction that things would work out just fine instead of any kind of apathy. "Disoriented and, I believe, hallucinating. I heard from my sister that his condition is only temporary, though."

"That's good," said the Judge, nodding, "moving on…"

"The prosecution is ready, your Honor."

"The defense is ready as well, your Honor," said Apollo.

"Now, yesterday, before the interruption, the L. A. Holmes massacre four years ago was brought up as being potentially related to this case. Mr. Fey, does the prosecution wish to pursue this line of reasoning?" the Judge said.

"Absolutely, your Honor," Miguel said, "the two cases are definitely related."

"Are you claiming that my client is the culprit from the case four years ago?" Apollo said.

"No," Miguel said, "although it's possible that the culprit from the case four years ago was at the crime scene." He took a sip of coffee. "The blood on the victim's clothing that belonged to neither her nor the defendant, and the blood on the carpet four years ago that belonged to no one in the house…" he smirked toothily, "they're the same blood."

"So the victim had an encounter with the culprit from four years ago," Apollo said, "Prosecutor Fey-Armando, what makes you say the culprit from four years ago was at the crime scene?"

"The knife from Ennie's kitchen," Miguel said. "After I took over the case yesterday, I had forensics do a more detailed analysis of the blood on the knife. There was a trace - so mixed with the other blood that it's understandable that forensics missed it the first time - of blood that matched that on Jantje's clothes."

"So the culprit from four years ago was injured with that knife, and the blood got on Jantje," Apollo said, frowning in thought, "and since the knife came from my client's apartment, you assume this took place at the crime scene."

"Yes," said Miguel.

"Who do you think did it?" Apollo said, "my client, or Jantje?" He crossed his arms. "If Jantje was the one with blood on her clothing, then it's likely that she attacked the culprit from four years ago with that knife."

"Only partial fingerprints were found on the knife. She never held it."

"Is it really important who attacked the culprit from four years ago?" the Judge said.

Before Apollo could answer _yes it is_ , Miguel did so for him: "It's of the _utmost_ importance, your Honor."

Apollo raised an eyebrow. He would have been bluffing if he had been the one to say that, and he more than suspected Miguel was in the same boat. But everyone knew Miguel had a personal stake in the L. A. Holmes case, so if he could use the Lars Ennie trial to finally get to the bottom of it? Fine. Let him.

"So what you're proposing," Apollo said, "is that this case actually had two victims - one of murder, Jantje, and one of attempted murder, L. A. Holmes."

"Essentially," Miguel said. He finished his cup of coffee and neatly caught the other one that slid to him over the bench. "I believe Mr. Ennie may have been dispensing a little vigilante justice while drunk in his apartment last weekend."

"Vigilante justice?" Apollo said.

"Jantje was clearly related to the massacre in and of herself. I assume my kitten mentioned it yesterday?"

"He mentioned she had a piece of evidence from that case on her," the Judge said, "but he didn't get the chance to say what."

"It was a slip of paper, your Honor," Miguel said, "with a very important number on it: 6YJL401."

"The license plate that allowed the police to find the converted hotel where the serial kidnapping victims were being held," Apollo said.

"Yes, exactly. But…" and Miguel took a swig of coffee, "that number was never released to the public. Only those directly involved in the case, or had access to the files of those who were, could have known that number."

 _Directly involved in the case, huh…_ , Apollo thought. Combined with the 'vigilante justice' comment… "Prosecutor Fey-Armando, do you believe that Jantje was some kind of accomplice in the incident four years ago?"

Miguel didn't say anything for a moment, his face serious, and Apollo couldn't tell if he was thinking about it or just being dramatic, then he said: "Yes. Yes, she was." Then he stretched his hand out, back to his normal insufferable smugness. "The defendant has a few things to say about this subject that I think the court needs to listen to. Get up here."

Ennie took the stand.

"Witness, name and occupation."

"My name is Lars Ennie… I'm the CFO of Central California Bank."

"You have kids, Mr. Ennie?" Miguel was smiling at him.

"Yes… one daughter, Ash. I'm divorced from her mother-"

"Any sons?"

Ennie was silent. Apollo narrowed his eyes.

"Not anymore, right?" Miguel said, and pulled out a piece of paper. "This is the list of victims from the L. A. Holmes massacre on July 8, 2050. I couldn't help but notice a name here… Garth Ennie, age fourteen. Went missing in Tracy in '46."

"My wife blamed me," Ennie said in a hoarse whisper, then he put his hands up to his face and sobbed. "She was right, I should have been watching him more closely… my beautiful son, gone in an instant, and then Roma took Ash away from me, too…"

"Your Honor," Miguel said casually, turning towards the Judge, "the motive."

"I see…" said the Judge.

Apollo's jaw worked. Ennie's apparent lack of connection to Jantje was a huge point in his favor, but if she really _was_ involved with L. A. Holmes, that went right out the window.

He slammed his fists on the desk. "How can you say for sure that Jantje was an accomplice in the L. A. Holmes case? We don't know anything about her background - maybe she lost a brother or friend and was trying to get revenge, herself. Maybe she only obtained the plate number through her own investigation!"

Miguel grinned at him. It was very much an 'I know something you don't' look. "Maybe we should look a little deeper into the L. A. Holmes case; I'm sure we'll find our answer there. Ennie, you're dismissed. …the prosecution calls Detective Ema Skye to the stand."

Apollo groaned internally. Cases with Juniper presiding and cases with Ema investigating were bad enough on their own, but the two of them at the same time?

"Witness, name and occupation."

"Ema Skye," she said with a cold emphasis on her last name, "homicide detective."

"I suppose you were the one who worked with Mr. Fey on the case four years ago?" the Judge said stiffly. She and Ema were glaring at each other, and Apollo could swear the temperature in the room had raised a couple degrees. (Miguel was completely unconcerned by all this.)

"I was," Ema said, her voice flat.

"Well," Miguel said, "give us an overview of the massacre, Detective."

Ema snorted, and directed her testimony towards Miguel rather than Apollo or the Judge. After a quick summation of events, she went on: "Ked Napp was found innocent when Diego Armando, his defense attorney, proved that the real culprit had escaped before the police entered the building. His proof was that there was unidentified blood in the carpet in one of the rooms on the third floor, where one of the hostages had been killed. Most likely the culprit escaped through the underground tunnel that connected to the building's laundry room - which the police _did_ check beforehand, but ruled out due to the lack of blood in the passage. After all, the crime scene had been incredibly bloody, so naturally we expected the culprit to have gotten some blood on them…" She ate a few Snackoos before continuing. "Mr. Armando proved that the reason why no blood had been found in the passage was because the culprit had stripped before leaving, and that was why Ked Napp was found wearing women's clothing."

"So L. A. Holmes is probably a woman?" Apollo interrupted.

"Potentially," Ema said dismissively.

"I guess you never know with these serial killer types," Apollo mumbled to himself.

Ema glared at him. "L. A. Holmes was a serial _kidnapper_ and a _mass_ murderer, not a serial murderer," she sniffed.

"Detective," Miguel said, "there was something else strange about the crime scene, wasn't there? Something we never quite figured out?"

"Well, I suppose if it's public knowledge now…" Ema said, "Alois was discovered unconscious but unharmed in a closet after the dust settled. Ordinarily we'd assume that he'd managed to hide during the massacre itself, but he had blood on him, indicating that he was present for at least one murder. Since it's unlikely that he, himself, _escaped_ from the culprit once the killings were underway, we thought he had been… spared."

"But, due to the fact that the culprit got _lucky_ that he didn't remember anything, that was never a move that made sense," Miguel said with a grin, "or at least, until now."

"What are you saying?" Apollo said.

"If we assume Jantje was present at the massacre, then we finally have our explanation as to why he survived - _she's_ the one who spared my kitten."

"Objection!" Apollo said, "you've been arguing that Jantje was an accomplice! Why would she spare-"

Miguel slammed the bottom of his coffee mug on his desk, and Apollo cut himself off. Miguel had a very strange, and slightly manic, look in his eyes. "She was in a position to stop the massacre entirely, and save twenty-five lives," he said, "but chose only to save one. That makes her complicit by criminal negligence in my eyes."

"I'm sure the defendant would see it the same way," Ema chimed in, "since one of the twenty-five she chose to let die was his son."

"Objection!" Apollo objected again, "I'd like to see some actual proof that Jantje _was_ at the crime scene four years ago!"

Ema frowned, and twisted a lock of hair between her fingers. "We don't exactly have concrete proof," she said slowly, "although she was definitely related somehow, and it does make all the pieces fall into place…"

"The court is willing to follow this assumption," the Judge said, "as long as it actually leads us back to the case at hand."

"Naturally, your Honor," Miguel said, "Detective Skye, about the culprit's blood…"

"How it got there, right?" Ema said, "well, the most likely thing is that they were attacked. We've always assumed that the bleeding came from a laceration when one of their victims fought back and managed to get the culprit to cut themselves, but we didn't find matching blood on the knife-"

"Wait," Apollo said, "this sounds familiar."

"Doesn't it?" said Miguel. "We think now that, four years ago, Jantje attacked L. A. Holmes with a weapon of her own."

"Or maybe L. A. Holmes attacked Jantje four years ago," Apollo said, "and it happened again this weekend." He slammed his fists on the defense bench. "The culprit of the case from four years ago attacked Jantje in my client's apartment, and was injured when she defended herself - _that's_ why their blood was on the knife, and on Jantje's clothing!" He pointed dramatically. "The defense proposes that the real killer in this case is the same one behind the hostage massacre!"

"Interesting," Miguel said, and Apollo blinked. He would have expected him to put up more of a fight than this. "It's true that, if our theory about Jantje being present at the massacre is correct, L. A. Holmes has a foregone motive: she might've talked. But then," he leaned forward, "why let her live in the first place? If _Jantje_ attacked _L. A. Holmes_ four years ago, then her escape would make sense. But if _L. A. Holmes_ attacked _Jantje_ four years ago, you'd think Jantje would have been dead for four years already."

"L. A. Holmes was injured," Apollo pointed out.

"Judging by the amount of blood," Ema said, "the only way L. A. Holmes would have been incapacitated was by head wound. That's not a very likely thing to inflict on someone when you're trying to defend yourself from a knife."

"Whether Jantje attacked them or the other way around," Apollo said, shaking his head, "L. A. Holmes has a solid motive. My point is that last weekend, L. A. Holmes' blood made its way to the crime scene by way of the fact that _they_ are the one who killed Jantje." He crossed his arms and smirked at Miguel. "So, your theory that Jantje was involved in the massacre is a double-edged sword after all, Prosecutor Fey-Armando."

Miguel shrugged. "We have our motive, and you have your idea of who it could have been if not the defendant. I'd say we came out about even, Mr. Justice." He smirked toothily. "Except for all the evidence against Mr. Ennie, of course."

Apollo's hair drooped. Yeah, that was still a bit of a mess. He was tempted to object to the whole line of reasoning they'd just been through, since really it _was_ just conjecture, but… he did feel he was onto something with L. A. Holmes being the real killer. Maybe…

Plus, he did find it a bit strange how Miguel had led that entire conversation, like he already knew exactly what had happened in that old hotel four years ago.

"There's one thing I still don't get," Ema said, "why would Jantje choose Alois, out of everyone there, to hide in a closet? There's nothing that indicates she even knew him."

"…who knows," Miguel said, impassively drinking his coffee, "I'm sure she had her own reasons."

Apollo raised an eyebrow. Why should _that_ be where Miguel steps down? Well, moving on, he said, "I'd like to address all the evidence against Mr. Ennie, actually, starting with the cross-examination from yesterday I was never able to finish."

"Go ahead," the Judge said, "Detective Skye, you may go."

"Finally," Ema snorted, then slinked out of the courtroom. The Judge visibly relaxed once she was gone.

"The defense calls Jackie Proserpine to the stand."

She took the stand again. Miguel asked her her name and occupation. She gave the same introductory line from yesterday: "My name is Jackie Proserpine. I'm the coroner's assistant at the Los Angeles County Morgue."

"Go ahead, Mr. Justice," Miguel said, sipping his coffee.

"Ms. Proserpine," Apollo said, standing up straight, "you're neighbors with the defendant, correct?"

"Correct."

"And your apartments have the same layout?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "How do you mean?"

Apollo pulled out a map of the apartment complex that he'd gotten from the superintendent the day before. "All the apartments on each floor of the building have the same layout," he said. "The doors all look the same, too. Now, witness, do you think it's possible to fool a drunk man into thinking he'd entered his own apartment by switching the nameplates and mimicking his own furnishings?" He folded his arms.

"That sounds like something out of a manga," Miguel commented.

Apollo didn't respond to that, because he didn't want to admit that he only realized the possibility in the fist place when he remembered an old manga he had once read.

"Even if the nameplates were switched and the apartments looked more or less the same once you got in," Jackie said, unruffled, "even that drunkard would realize he had the wrong apartment when he couldn't put in the door code."

"Unless the person switching the apartment changed their door code to match his," Apollo said.

Jackie rolled her eyes. "Just say you think it was me."

"I'm not levying an accusation just yet, Ms. Proserpine. However," he pulled out a piece of paper, "while he wasn't legally allowed to disclose the codes themselves to me, your superintendent _did_ tell me that you suddenly changed your door code the day of the crime, and changed it again the day after."

"That's not a crime," Jackie said.

"I agree," Miguel said, "unless, of course, you have proof that the witness was changing her door code for the sake of tricking Ennie."

"Plus," Jackie said, "even if my apartment _looked_ like his, it wouldn't have his things in it. What about his suitcase?"

"You could have easily placed that in your own apartment while he was out," Apollo said, "and if that were so, it explains why there were no traces of blood found on the suitcase."

"Come on, Mr. Justice," Miguel said, "this whole set-up only works if Proserpine can guarantee Ennie would immediately fall asleep on the couch, instead of going into 'his' room."

"Witness," Apollo said, "how long have you and the defendant been neighbors?"

"…almost four years now."

Apollo shook his head. "I don't find it unlikely that she would know his drunken habits."

"Mr. Justice," the Judge said, "as plausible as you make it sound, your speculation is just that - speculation. Do you have any concrete proof that this room swap took place?"

"It explains why the crime scene wasn't cleaned up at all," Apollo said, "which you have to admit is unusual."

"I said concrete proof, Mr. Justice."

"Er… the lack of blood on the suitcase."

The Judge gave him an unimpressed look, and Apollo could practically taste the upcoming penalty, when Miguel swooped in: "It just doesn't stand up against the evidence we have against the defendant. For instance, that quarter."

"Actually," Apollo said, turning back to Jackie, "I wanted to ask about that, too. You're the coroner's assistant - could you describe, in detail, the nature of the quarter being found in the victim's body?"

Jackie shrugged. "It was found in her abdominal cavity," she said, "it looked as though it had fallen from Ennie's pocket, and got pushed in deeper by the tip of the knife. I doubt he noticed it."

"What's the possibility that it was intentionally planted?" Apollo said.

"Low," Jackie said, "as I said, it was pushed between her organs by the point of a knife. If it were planted, Ennie would have been more likely to use his fingers, which would have displaced things slightly, and it would come up in the autopsy."

"Just out of curiosity," Apollo said, "who discovered the quarter - you, or Dr. Kamosinko?"

"…me," Jackie said warily.

"Speaking of curiosity," Miguel said casually, "does anyone else think that the victim's nails are awfully clean for a homeless woman's?"

There was the briefest lull while everyone wondered what the heck Miguel was bringing that up for, then Apollo realized he was right. "Yeah," he said, flipping to the photographs in the autopsy report, "they _are_ clean."

"Does this matter?" said the Judge.

"Your Honor, the victim had defensive wounds, meaning she clearly fought back against her attacker," Apollo said, "and almost always, when the victim fights back like this, bits of skin from their assailant will end up under their nails. It's enough that you could actually do a DNA test with it."

"I see," said the Judge, "and this DNA evidence was intentionally removed?"

"Evidently."

"You certainly know your forensics, Mr. Justice," Jackie said, side-eyeing him.

"I married Detective Skye," Apollo said, "of course I do."

"Hmm," Miguel said, pensively swirling his coffee around in his mug, "is it just me, or is that level of forensic knowledge a bit out of the grasp of a banker…"

"…and more in-keeping with a coroner's assistant?" Apollo said, crossing his arms and smiling determinedly, "yeah, I'd say it is. And as coroner's assistant, it'd be incredibly easy for her to plant damning evidence against my client under the guise of 'finding' it during the autopsy."

"What is this?" Jackie said, her lips drawing back in a snarl. "You have no right to be hounding me like this. All of the evidence points towards Ennie!"

"And all of the evidence could have _very_ easily been fabricated by you," Apollo said, "you know, witness, sometimes when evidence piles up like this, it starts to get suspicious."

"I'll admit that the prosecution doesn't have an adequate explanation as to why the defendant _wouldn't_ have cleaned his apartment before he left for Tracy," Miguel said, "so there may actually be merit to the defense's theory that he didn't set foot in his apartment at all that night."

"Plus," Apollo said, "considering you work in a morgue, you'd be used to moving around dead bodies, so you can't even claim that it would have taken a man to take Jantje to the dumpster."

Jackie slammed her fist on the witness stand with a resounding _bang_. "What reason would I have to kill some homeless woman!" she shouted.

And while this would have stopped Apollo in his tracks two hours ago, he instead said: "Ms. Proserpine, my assertion that the real killer is the mass murderer from four years ago _has not changed_."

* * *

" **Garth Ennie" is a really bad way of trying to do "gardeny". Hey, there are only so many words that end in -eny…  
** " **Roma", that is, "Roma Ennie" is a pun on "Romani". So… I guess dude married a gypsy?**

 **Apollo and Ema's exchange about serial murderer vs. serial kidnapper and mass murderer was based off of an actual conversation I had with Sith about this fic. (I was Ema.)**

 **The "sounds like something of a manga" thing is a nod to the fact that I totally got the idea from some case in Detective Conan. Actually, now that I think about it, more than one case used this trick, iirc.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Last chapter! Still not too late to review though...**

* * *

 _May 1, 12:30 PM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9_

"You think _I'm_ L. A. Holmes?" Jackie snarled.

"It's a possibility," Apollo said.

"Mr. Justice, this is a serious accusation," said the Judge. "Do you have any evidence…?"

"All we need to do is compare her DNA to the blood found at the crime scenes."

"I do not consent to such a test," Jackie snapped. "You'll have to get a warrant."

Apollo frowned. Getting a warrant would take too long, and Jackie would probably skip town while they were at it.

"We won't need a warrant if we have concrete evidence tying to either the hostage massacre or the murder," Miguel said. "Do you have anything like that, Mr. Justice?"

Apollo's frown deepened, and he looked through the court record. No… no, he didn't have anything like that. Everything he had against her was only circumstantial, and the only real reason he had to believe that it was _her_ behind Jantje's murder, and by extension the hostage massacre, was that he knew Ennie was innocent.

 _Am I wrong?_ Apollo thought, _is Proserpine really not the killer?_

"Well, defense?" said the Judge.

"I'd like to outline what happened, your Honor," said Apollo, crossing his arms and speaking confidently. Maybe something would occur to him while he was talking.

"Go ahead."

"Sixteen years ago, Jackie Proserpine inherited a Hollywood hotel from a relative and assumed the fictitious identity 'Julia Smythe'. Two years after that, she began her serial kidnappings. At some point," he said, pressing a finger against his forehead, "she must have encountered Jantje, and somehow became allied with her. I assume Jantje stayed in the hotel with the hostages, since no one in this city had seen her before July four years ago - just after the hostage massacre.

"During the massacre, something must have happened between Ms. Proserpine and Jantje, and one of them attacked the other, which is how Ms. Proserpine's blood got on the carpet. Ms. Proserpine was somehow driven off or incapacitated, and Jantje took the opportunity to hide Alois in a closet and presumably escape… although why she didn't take just Alois with her, I have no idea…

"So the end result of the hostage massacre is that there were three people who could potentially out Ms. Proserpine as the mass murderer: Ked Napp, who was already delusional with little hope of recovery; Alois von Karma-Gavin, who would be a difficult target, since he works closely with the police and doesn't live alone; and Jantje. Last weekend, Ms. Proserpine enacted her plan to kill Jantje.

"While my client was out, Ms. Proserpine moved his suitcase to her apartment, changed her door code to match his, and switched the plate numbers. That way, when Mr. Ennie returned from the bar, he would enter her apartment instead of his and fall asleep on her couch, not noticing anything different in his drunken state, and the next morning would be so rushed and hungover that he would simply grab his suitcase and run out without ever noticing he was in the wrong apartment. Meanwhile, Ms. Proserpine lured Jantje into the defendant's apartment, most likely taking advantage of the fact that they were former partners in crime, and used one of Mr. Ennie's business cards to prevent the electronic lock from engaging so nothing would seem amiss.

"She then murdered Jantje with a knife from Mr. Ennie's kitchen, and used one of his jackets to transport her to the dumpster. After that, it was simply a matter of waiting for the crime to be discovered so she could tamper with the body and complete her framing of Lars Ennie."

"I see," said the Judge.

"Very complicated," Miguel commented. "And your proof?"

"As I said, the blood should match," Apollo said, "and the witness should be injured somewhere."

"I don't consent to being searched for injuries," Jackie snapped.

"So, lacking a warrant," Miguel said, "and lacking any proof with which to forego the warrant, the defense's theory all comes down to conjecture and circumstantial evidence." He put one hand on his hip. "I wouldn't mind getting a warrant for a body search and DNA test, Mr. Justice, but it'll extend the trial another day and we don't have grounds to detain the witness in the meantime."

Apollo nodded. This was bad.

"Can I go now?" said Jackie.

"Well, I suppose you…" the Judge started.

This was _really_ bad.

The courtroom doors swung open before the Judge could finish dismissing the witness. A freckled head with glasses and boyish features popped in.

"Jourbon, y'all," Detective Grantaire said, "mon petit doigt m'a dit que the L. A. Holmes massacre is going to trial encore."

"More or less," Miguel said.

She walked into the room, twirling a flash drive around her finger. "I have une preuve here I think the court should hear."

"What is it?" the Judge said.

Detective Grantaire smiled vacantly at her. "An audio recording that la victime in this case, Jantje, gave to un ami of mine, another detective, Alexander Bires, some years ago."

"I've never heard of a detective named Alexander Bires," Miguel said.

"Oh, he's'n't around anymore, but I've been holding onto cette preuve for some time now." She tossed the flash drive at Miguel, who caught it neatly and plugged it into the court computer. "Jantje took this recording, on her phone je crois, during the hostage massacre."

"Let's hear it, then," Apollo said. Jackie was glaring at Detective Grantaire's back with the if-looks-could-kill equivalent of the Tsar Bomba.

Miguel pressed play.

"…

"…ach Gotter…

" _thump_

"…

" _thump_

" _whack! whack! whack! whack! whack!…_

"…

"I see you feel the same anger I do.

"…

"Who are you?

"…I… I am J-Jantje, and I will not let you hurt anyone else."

There was silence in the court. Jackie was white-knuckling the witness stand.

"The metadata from the recording is included with it," Miguel said, "this recording was taken on the day of the massacre, and the GPS coordinates put it at the hotel."

"Plus, that German phrase at the beginning of the recording," Apollo said, "that was Alois, wasn't it?"

"We'd need a voice analysis to say for sure," Miguel said, "but that's a reasonable assumption, yes. Speaking of voice analyses…"

Apollo folded his arms confidently. "If a voice analysis reveals that the woman speaking on the tape was the witness, then that's more than solid ground to run her DNA against the blood. How long will it take to get a voice analysis done, Prosecutor Fey-Armando?"

"A day, or maybe more," Miguel said, "since the recording isn't very high-quality. However, I think it'd be reasonable to detain the witness in the meantime…"

"You can't _do_ this to me," Jackie snarled.

"Ooh là là, a day or perhaps more?" Detective Grantaire said, putting her hands to her face, "non, non, that's too long. J'ai un idée. M'sieur Justice, Athena Cykes still works at your law office, oui? As I recall, she is very good at… this sort of thing."

"Oh, of course!" Apollo said, "Athena! We can use her special hearing to ascertain if it's really the witness in the recording after all. Your Honor, I think I can get her here in fifteen minutes if you'll declare a recess."

"Well, I'm willing to give it a shot," said the Judge. "This court will now take a twenty-minute recess."

* * *

 _May 1, 1:15 PM, District Court, Defendant's Lobby no. 9_

"That was close," Ennie said.

"We're not out of the woods yet, Mr. Ennie," Apollo said, "as it stands, the Judge can still reject my theory that Proserpine framed you."

"B-But if your co-worker proves that that was her on the recording?" Ennie said.

"She'll be nailed for the hostage massacre, but unless she lets something slip, the prosecution could still probably stick you with Jantje's murder charge," Apollo said, "and he might go back to claiming that you attempted to murder Proserpine."

"Oh," Ennie said, his face crumpling.

"But don't worry!" Apollo said quickly, "you'll be fine. Just trust me."

Athena ran into the room. "Apollo! Are you making your client cry?"

"I didn't do anything," Apollo said, "glad you got here in time. This whole case has gone on long enough." Something occurred to him. "Say, Athena, do you actually know that QLF detective?"

"QLF detective?" Widget chirped.

"You mean Anna Grantaire?" Athena said. "I'm pretty sure I've seen her around once or twice since February, but she's never said a word to me. I guess she's shy."

'Shy' wasn't really a word Apollo would ascribe to Detective Grantaire, but he shrugged it off. Plenty of people had heard of Athena, after all.

* * *

 _May 1, 1:30 PM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9_

Since Jackie was occupying the witness stand, Athena stood next to Apollo at the defense bench. "Facciamolo!" she said, punching her palm.

Miguel played the recording again.

"…I see you feel the same anger I do…"

"Wow," Widget beeped.

"Ireon," Athena gasped.

"What is it?" Apollo said.

"I've never heard so much rage in one person's voice," Athena said, "it's like it's all she feels. Just endless, empty fury."

"That's consistent with the testimony Ked Napp gave us four years ago," Miguel said.

"But… I didn't know it was possible for someone to _hate_ so much!"

Apollo glanced over at the witness stand. With the way Jackie was glowering, he could believe it.

"Ms. Cykes still needs something to compare the recording to," the Judge said, "witness, please say something."

"…" Jackie just redirected her venomous gaze at the Judge.

"Witness," Miguel said, "you are aware that the right to silence only applies to self-incrimination while you're in court?"

"…"

"Well, while the witness is being stubborn," Miguel said, perfectly unconcerned, "I have a question for the defense."

"Yes?" Apollo said.

"You claimed that Jantje and L. A. Holmes were accomplices," Miguel said, "specifically, that they worked together - not that Jantje was just criminally negligent. However, in the recording, L. A. Holmes asks who Jantje is." He looked at Apollo over the rim of his coffee cup. "Why would she do that if she and Jantje were partners?"

"…clearly I was wrong about that part," Apollo said, "but the recording did definitively place Jantje at the crime scene four years ago."

"As someone who attacked L. A. Holmes," Miguel said, and slammed his coffee mug down. "Tell me, then, Mr. Justice, if L. A. Holmes really is the killer, how did she lure Jantje into Ennie's apartment to kill her?!"

Apollo recoiled. It was true, it was a completely illogical move on Jantje's end - she'd know that Proserpine was the mass murderer, and she'd know that Proserpine would have a vested interest in shutting her up, so why, if they weren't partners, would Jantje trust Proserpine enough to be willing to be alone in the same room as her?

"Actually, I think I can answer that, Prosecutor Armando," Athena said.

"Really?" He looked a little surprised.

"On the recording," Athena said, "Jantje sounded very… sad, and grimly determined. I think she may have been planning ever since the massacre to get herself killed by L. A. Holmes, so she could drag her back out into the open."

"Is that so?" Miguel said. His face was inscrutable.

"Well, it's just a theory. I can't prove it," Athena said, "but that's how it seemed to me. She probably thought there wasn't enough evidence to book L. A. Holmes on the kidnapping and mass murder charges, but a separate murder some years later…"

"Surely there was another way she could do it," the Judge said.

"Maybe she felt she had to," Miguel said, "maybe that was the only way she could get things to stick."

 _You mean the charges?_ Apollo thought. "Well," he said, "if that's the case, then there isn't a contradiction in my theory after all. Now all we need is to find out if Ms. Proserpine is the one in the recording after all."

"And with such a distinctive voice-" Athena began.

Jackie cut her off. "Just because I was _at_ the crime scene doesn't mean I'm L. A. Holmes!" she screamed. Athena recoiled.

"Kyllä," she said, "it's definitely her. There's no mistaking that anger…"

"Even if the blood is mine, it doesn't _prove_ that _I_ killed anyone!" Jackie said, stamping her foot, "it was just a stupid bluff by an overrated, half-senile defense attorney four years ago - why are you assuming he was right?!"

Miguel's jaw worked as he took a swig of coffee, then set his mug down, grinning widely and maliciously at Jackie. He probably didn't appreciate the slight against his father and hey, they were _getting_ somewhere now. Apollo wondered if Lars Ennie was even on Miguel's mind at this point. "You know, witness," Miguel said, "during the recess I got a phone call. And while I was reluctant to do this…"

"What are you doing, Mr. Fey?" the Judge said.

"The witness is dismissed," Miguel said, "but bailiff, make sure she stays in the room. The prosecution calls Alois von Karma-Gavin to the stand."

"He's here?" said the Judge.

"He arrived from the hospital right at the end of the recess. Insisted on testifying."

"Against Jackie Proserpine?" Apollo said. "She's not the one on trial here, Prosecutor Fey-Armando." Not that he was complaining…

Miguel just smiled arrogantly at him. "Don't worry about that, Mr. Justice," he said, "it's the truth I'm after, not a guilty verdict. Besides," he added slyly, "just because Proserpine is L. A. Holmes doesn't mean she killed Jantje - it just means that Ennie tried to kill her, too."

 _So he was going to go back to that_ , Apollo thought, and finally Alois took the stand. He was almost sheet-white, for him anyway, and was dressed in hospital pajamas instead of his normal frills, which somehow made him look very small and vulnerable.

"Hey, kitten," Miguel said, "how you doing?"

"Better," Alois said in a parched voice. Despite everything, he was holding his head high.

"Should he really be out of the hospital right now?" Athena whispered to Apollo. Apollo just shrugged.

"You know the drill," Miguel told Alois.

Alois nodded. "I'm Alois von Karma-Gavin, a prosecutor."

"And your relationship to the witness?"

"She… kidnapped me four years ago." He grimaced. "I don't know how I could have forgotten her face until now, but I'm sure it was her. She killed another boy right in front of me, I-I remember. Ich erinnere mich an das Blut-"

"Don't push yourself, kitten," Miguel said as the Judge tapped her gavel to settle down the murmuring gallery. "Take a deep breath."

"…I'm alright," Alois said, smiling slightly, "I can do this. Yes, Miss Proserpine is the mass murderer from four years ago. There's no doubt about it."

It happened very suddenly.

Jackie bolted from her spot next to bailiff, the bailiff's hand just narrowly snatched thin air where her arm had just been, and she grabbed Alois around the chest, pulling a scalpel out of her pocket and putting it to his neck.

"Nobody move," she snarled.

People started screaming in the gallery. The bailiff drew their gun, but didn't advance or aim. Miguel's hands curled into fists, and Apollo had to hold Athena back. Detective Noir vaulted over the gallery railing and whipped her gun out, pointing it at Proserpine.

"Grab air," she said coldly.

Proserpine barked out a laugh and pressed the scalpel closer to Alois' throat, the tip of it digging into skin. A single drop of blood welled and trickled down to his collar. "Damn it," Proserpine said, "I had everything set up so well. It would have been a nice, easy case for the prosecution if only they didn't drag the incident four years ago into this. Damn it! That Jantje… broke my nose four years ago and ran off… thought she took the new kid with her… if I'd known he was hidden in that closet I would have killed him." She shook her head angrily, and her hair fell away from her face enough to see the white gauze taped her cheek, just below her eye. "Then she came back all of a sudden, told me she had proof that I was behind the L. A. Holmes massacre, and arranged to meet me at my apartment. Everything happened just as the defense said… she played me for a sap… should have known she was just trying to sacrifice herself for my conviction… DAMN HER!"

Detective Noir shifted forward slightly, taking a half-step forward, and Proserpine moved her wrist - would have sliced Alois' throat right then if he hadn't jerked his head back suddenly at that moment, smashing the back of his skull into her nose, and at the same time stamping down on her foot, _hard_. She recoiled, and Alois ducked - she grabbed his neck, scalpel raised-

And then Proserpine's brains were spattered all over the floor behind the witness stand.

Detective Noir blew the smoke off the muzzle of her revolver. In her eyes was a look of… relief.

The courtroom was still. Miguel's mouth was hanging open and Athena's hands were practically glued to the sides of her head. All the blood was draining out of the Judge's face. Apollo felt numb with shock.

"Did that really just happen?!" Widget chirped, breaking the silence.

Alois dazedly turned from where he had been staring at Proserpine's body, rubbed the back of his head, then staggered sideways. Miguel started, but Detective Noir ran to him first, supporting him and whisking him out of the courtroom.

"…I guess this proves I'm innocent," Ennie said from the defendant's box.

"Yes," the Judge said at length, once she was done inhaling off her sunflower, "yes, I suppose it does. Do… either the prosecution or defense have any objections to this?"

"Of course not, your Honor," Apollo said, recovering.

"None whatsoever, your Honor," Miguel said, sipping from a coffee mug that was noticeably trembling.

"V-Very well. This court finds the defendant, Lars Ennie… **NOT GUILTY**. Now, er, bailiff, could you please do something about the body…?"

* * *

 _May 1, 3:00 PM, District Court, Prosecutor's Lobby no. 9_

"I thought you were going to _die_ for a minute there, kitten," Miguel said, grabbing Alois by the shoulders, then pulling him into a hug. "It's finally over… I should thank you, Detective Noir," he glanced at her, "for shooting her. I know you're going to face some criticism from the media, but I'm sure Chief Gumshoe will be sympathetic."

Detective Noir nodded once. "Actually, Prosecutor Fey, I should be the one thanking _you_."

"Me?" He finally let go of Alois and turned to face her.

"For cornering L. A. Holmes."

"Just doing my job, ma'am. And Mr. Justice helped, too."

She shook her head. "Prosecutor Fey, have you ever really looked at the list of victims? Ever really dug it?"

Miguel blinked, then pulled the list out of his organizer and skimmed it quickly. A name caught his eye: Gris Noir.

"My son," Detective Noir said.

"I never realized…" Alois murmured.

Detective Noir pulled a photograph out of her trenchcoat and handed it to the two of them. It was of her and a young boy with curly gray hair and red eyes. It looked like it was taken at the top of the Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier in Chicago.

"He vanished while he was walking home from school two years before the incident," she said, "if he were still alive, he'd be about Alois' age."

 _That explains a lot_ , Miguel thought. He handed back the photograph.

"…he was the one I met," Alois mumbled.

"Come again?" Detective Noir said.

"He's the one I was locked in the room with," Alois said, unable to meet her eye, "and the one I watched die. I… I'm sorry, Frau Detektivin Noir. I should have done something."

She shook her head again. "Alois," she said, "you were thirteen. If you'd tried to do something, you'd be sleeping the big sleep yourself."

"He said he missed you."

"…"

Detective Noir turned away, clutching the photo to her chest. Her shoulders shook a little. She sniffed. "I… see," she said, her voice thick, "thank you… for telling me. That's good to know." She straightened a little, wiping her eyes, adjusting her fedora, and putting the photo back in the inner pocket of her coat. "Well," she said, her voice clipped, "I have some paperwork to fill out about squirting lead in a courtroom. Abyssinia."

She walked out, leaving Miguel and Alois alone.

"…so you finally remember everything, huh, kitten?" Miguel said.

"Ja," Alois said, "well, mostly everything. My memory gets a little fuzzy after a certain point, though. Some of it doesn't really make sense."

"Like?"

"Like…" he put his hands on his hips, frowning, "after I passed out, I guess I half-woke a little bit on my way to that closet where they found me. I know I must have been delirious or dreaming, but… I swear, Miguel, it was Mama who was carrying me through the hall."

Miguel laughed, and Alois looked at him, startled. "Sorry," Miguel said, taking a swig of coffee, "it's just that you and your sister have a _lot_ to talk about, that's all."

* * *

 _May 1, 12:40 AM, Kaminogi Housing Complex_

Watson squinted at her cell phone screen. It was a poorly-lit picture of a shirtless Miguel ushering Jana von Karma-Gavin into his apartment. "I guess this is as good as we're going to get," she said.

"Taking something really far out of context?" Ares said sardonically.

"Do you really think that's going to work?" Misty E said from the mouth of the alley, where she was keeping watch for Macario.

Watson sighed, leaning against the brick wall and rubbing her temples. "No," she said at length. "Not unless we manage to convince Jana to claim that something… unseemly… happened."

"You mean if _you_ manage to convince Jana to make that claim," Ares said, "I'm just your unwilling chauffeur."

"…and anyway there's no way that'll happen," Watson continued, ignoring Ares. "She hates me but loves Miguel. And I doubt she has any dark secrets I can exploit, either."

"Finally giving up?" came Macario Armando's voice from just around the corner. Misty E immediately stepped out, and struck first, but he blocked her blow with the back of his arm, his other hand still shoved casually in his pocket.

"Why are you here in the alpha timeline?" Ares said, walking over.

"Oh?" Macario tilted his head, his one eye narrowing in the street lamp's glare. "Misty didn't say a thing?"

"Not a word," Misty E said, and it was less an answer to his question and more a warning to him. Her whole body was tensed.

"That's funny, Misty," he said, then addressed Ares, "I'm here because _your_ godforsaken timeline is the one causing all my troubles. _You're_ the reason why I can't go home."

"Go home? Why can't you go home?" Watson said.

"The lambda timeline is…"

"No," Misty E said.

"…destroyed."

"Liar!" Misty E said, swinging her leg around so suddenly that Macario didn't get the chance to dodge out of the way before her boot hit him the face. He fell backwards to the ground, and she was crouched over him in an instant, holding him down with one knee and pressing a derringer to his forehead. Watson hadn't even know Misty E _carried_ a gun.

"That's not _true_ ," Misty E said through bared teeth.

Macario laughed at her. "Is that really what you think? You _really_ think you can go back to the life you abandoned?"

"…"

"This is why I hate time travelers."

" _You_ are a time traveler."

"I know. So go ahead and kill me," Macario said, putting his hand over her gun hand, and smiling widely, "kill me like you killed _him_."

There was a very pregnant pause in which the whole city seemed to go silent. Watson and Ares both watched Misty E and Macario without moving.

Finally, Misty E stood up, and tucked her pistol back into her vest. "Mr. Ares, sir," she said, her eyes shadowed and her voice neutral, "we should go. Wouldn't want to cause another scene at LA Central."

"…sure," Ares said, and the two of them began to walk off.

"Wait!" Watson called after them, following them for a few steps, but they didn't even slow down. And then they were gone. She grit her teeth, and turned to where Macario had just been lying, but… he had disappeared, too.

All alone in a pool of lamplight, Watson Justice's fingers slowly curled into fists.

* * *

 _May 4, 5:00 PM, Gavin Estate, Alois' room_

"Has Uncle Kristoph left to pick Mama and Papa up from the airport yet?" Jana said, sticking her head through the door.

"Ja," Alois said, looking up from his book. "Did you need him?"

Jana shook her head and held her notebook up. "My future self left me a message."

"Jantje did?" Alois said as Jana sat on his bed.

"Yes," Jana said, "Jantje. I keep forgetting she changed her name and lived in this timeline for almost four years."

"She had to make sure your changes to the timeline would stick," Alois said. "But I still wonder… could she not have prevented the hostage massacre entirely, and then travelled to or waited for December '53 and prevent Ares' murder attempt on Maria? That would be the best route, nein?"

Jana shook her head. She'd been thinking a lot about this - it hadn't occurred to her at the time, but in retrospect that was the obvious solution and she couldn't believe that her older self wouldn't have thought of it. "I do not know why we could not do that," she said, "I think… we could not."

"Perhaps another time traveler would have come in and prevented you from interfering at that juncture."

"Perhaps." Jana tossed her notebook at him, and he caught it, and began flipping through the pages. His stomach flipped a bit when he passed the page where his future self's dying message was copied and deciphered - even if they were alternate timelines, the fact that Jana had confronted his death two times in the past week was… disquieting. "How do you know it was Jantje who left it?"

"It is in my handwriting," Jana said, "but I did not write it. She must have taken my notebook and written in it while I was not looking."

Alois found it on the back page.

 _Sometime in the next year, Watson Justice will disappear._

 _This will be when she travels back in time and founds the Tula Group._

 _Also, Ares is Huitzilopotchli, the founder of the Teotihuacan Foundation._

 _Quetzalcoatl Law Firm as a whole is not to be trusted, but you do have your allies there. Value them._

They looked at each other.

"I suppose," Alois said, "we can't really be too surprised."

* * *

 _Time: ? Date: ? Location: Tennessee  
_ _LN α ω_

Watson looked up from her stupor to the cacophonous sound of a violin being dropped on her desk. She yawned.

"What's this, Misty?"

Misty sneered at her. "Thought you might be needing it… after all, you can hardly play fiddle while Rome burns if you lack a fiddle."

Watson rolled her eyes. "Always so dramatic. Just give your report."

"Yes, ma'am," Misty said with just enough of a huff to hint at the existence of a resentfully suppressed sigh of defeat. "There's activity in the phi timeline. I believe Mailit's starting to make his move."

"Is that all?" Watson said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, keep an eye on him," Watson said, stretching. "Don't let him know you're there."

"I won't."

"You may go."

Misty hesitated. Watson narrowed her eyes. "What is it now?"

"Jana's gone missing," Misty said, her voice tight. "And for some reason, my time travel device now seems to think that my home timeline is the alpha _epsilon_ timeline, not the alpha alpha. Should I… look into that?"

Watson's lips momentarily twitched in a half-smile. "No," she said, "it's not important."

"Not-!"

"Do as I told you to do. No distractions. Do you understand, Misty?" There was a dangerous edge to her voice.

"…yes, ma'am."

"You may go," Watson said again.

Misty, back stiff and straight, turned around and marched to the door. She had her hand on the handle when Watson said, "actually, wait a minute."

She turned around just in time to catch a small rock Watson had thrown at her. She looked at it - judging by its weight and appearance, it was a lump of pure gold. "What's this?"

"It's from that time last week you gave me a chunk of lead and told me to transfigure it," Watson said with a shrug. "Thought you might want it back."

"…I see." She put the gold in her pocket and left, passing Watson's freckled blonde wife on the way on. They exchanged a silent nod, and the door closed behind her.

Misty's throat felt very dry.

* * *

 **Yes, Alexander Bires is another one of Anna Grantaire/Airey Verkhovensky/the Phantom's identities. Once again named after me, with Alexander kind of being my 'boy name' and Bires being my mother's maiden name - a Czech name, which is now pretty much extinct in the male line since Uncle Donny only has daughters.  
** **Also, yes, the irony of the Phantom recommending Athena be called in…**

" **Gris" is the masculine form of "gray" in French.  
** **Detective Noir's dead son is actually something I've kind of been hinting at since JvK-G:AA. Although I've never implied she had children per se, the maternal attitude she takes towards Alois had to come from SOMEWHERE.**

 **...So comes to an end the wildest Janaverse fic yet. Sith's currently working on two different new ones, one of which will explore this Mailit character and the other of which will explore the transition between LAL and the rest of the Janaverse. Me, I'm working on Tennessee Turnabout, which will be the Watson characterization I'm sure you've all been waiting for - plus, just who is Wat's wife? I'm also considering writing a sidefic detailing the murder investigation in epsilon-2057, if I have the time. If I do write it, it'll probably have lots of Macario. I haven't thought about a title, though. Nor do I know the titles of Sith's fics. Still, keep an eye out for Tennessee Turnabout sometime soon-ish! Before Thanksgiving, hopefully!**

 **Translations:  
** **mon petit doigt m'a dit que (FR) a little birdie told me that** _ **literally, my little finger told me that  
**_ **encore. (FR) again.  
** **une preuve (FR) evidence  
** **un ami (FR) a friend  
** **cette (FR) this  
** **je crois (FR) I believe  
** **J'ai un idée. (FR) I have an idea.  
** **oui? (FR) yes?  
** **Facciamolo! (IT) Let's do this!  
** **Ireon, (KO) Oh my gosh,** _ **literally, This, as in How could it come to this?  
**_ **Kyllä, (FI) Yes/Yeah,  
** **Ich erinnere mich an das Blut- (DE) I remember the blood-**


End file.
